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

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while many gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—specifically, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes new problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the title that refuses to load some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of items to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that enables him to clip through the world. Some would consider these means reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube version of his journey spares the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He can't necessarily clone objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.