Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while numerous players have attempted to finish the game with only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A one-branch run, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this character gains full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This creates fresh issues, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that refuses to open certain locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the character he pulls across universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows him to clip through the environment. A few would find these means grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 straight. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to always duplicate items during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

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