Streaming Star Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <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 exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, although many gamers have tried to finish the game with only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch run, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile tool in the whole game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this Link acquires full endurance and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.

That creates fresh issues, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that allows him to clip through the environment. A few would find these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The video edit of his journey spares the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is after all just a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

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