Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous players have attempted to complete the game with just a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a third game file that combines the states of the first two files.

That causes fresh issues, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the game that fails to load some locations. As with 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 make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that allows him to clip through the environment. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the audience endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully 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.