Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while numerous gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, like the instance he went through the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a third game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This creates fresh problems, however. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to open certain locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he pulls between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also employs a bug that enables him to clip through the world. Some would find these means grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last several long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all only a piece of wood. He can't always clone items during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

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