Twitch Star Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to clear the game with a single branch—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, like the instance he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.

That creates new problems, though. The fused file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the game that refuses to load some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that enables him to phase through the world. A few would find these means reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube version of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last several long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.