Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. However, while numerous gamers have attempted to finish the game using just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a one stick—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he went through the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the story with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire world. But if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this character gains full endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That causes new problems, however. The merged file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the title that refuses to open some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is still a weak item that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables him to phase through the world. Some would find these methods reason to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The video version of his quest spares the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.