Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>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 run out of creative challenge runs that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a single branch—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest tool in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum stamina and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third save file that combines the states of the first two files.

This causes new problems, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to load certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective item that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to phase through the environment. A few would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The video edit of his journey spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

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

In the end, the streamer banned over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.