Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although many players have tried to complete the game with only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a single branch—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he played the title using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires full endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third game file that combines the states of the original two.

That creates new problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to open some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the Link he pulls between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective item that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables Link to clip through the environment. A few would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a piece of wood. He can't always clone items during the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.