Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a gameplay session. However, while many gamers have tried to complete the game with just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a one branch—meaning, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero energy. A single stick run, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first tutorial island, and this character gains maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new save file that merges the states of the first two files.

That creates fresh issues, though. The merged save file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes readily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to open some areas. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the character he pulls between universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of items to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that allows Link to phase through the environment. A few would find these means grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The video edit of his journey spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always clone items during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

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