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

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, although numerous gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a one branch—specifically, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he played the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with zero energy. A single stick run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires full endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That creates fresh problems, however. The fused save file has a Link that never obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the game that refuses to load certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the Link he pulls between dimensions is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these means reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The video version of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take several hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.