Streaming Personality Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although many players have attempted to complete the game using just a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a one branch—specifically, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the game solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no energy. A one-branch run, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this character gains full stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a new save file that merges the states of the first two files.

This creates new problems, however. The merged save file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the game that refuses to open some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows him to clip through the world. A few would consider these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban one fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to get through many of the game's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube version of his quest spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.