Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting 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 arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous gamers have tried to complete the game using only a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the time he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with no stamina. A single stick run, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.

That creates fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the game that refuses to open certain areas. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of items to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the environment. A few would consider these means grounds to discredit the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned over 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.