Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous 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 game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the game solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains full stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This creates fresh problems, however. The merged file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the game that fails to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the Link he pulls between universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a glitch that enables him to phase through the world. A few would consider these methods reason to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last several long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the user to use the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.