Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although many players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he played the game using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to beat the game with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new game file that merges the states of the first two files.

This causes new problems, however. The merged save file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to open some locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he transfers between universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows him to phase through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The video version of his quest spares the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.