Twitch Personality Spends 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest tool in the entire game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That creates fresh problems, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to open certain areas. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube version of his journey spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive 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.