Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous gamers have tried to finish the game with just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the game using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with zero stamina. A one-branch run, though, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires full endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This causes fresh issues, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to open certain areas. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that enables him to phase through the world. Some would find these methods grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He also uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.