Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous gamers have attempted to complete the game with only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he played the title using only explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A one-branch run, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that merges the states of the first two files.

That causes fresh problems, however. The merged save file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the title that fails to load certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that enables Link to clip through the world. Some would consider these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last several hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.