Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Straight 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 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while many players have tried to finish the game with just a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the very same stick 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 attempt where he tried to beat the game with no energy. A one-branch run, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile tool in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires full endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That causes fresh problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to open some areas. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link 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 the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a glitch that enables Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these means reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all only a piece of wood. He can't always clone items during the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.