Twitch Star Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, while many gamers have attempted to finish the game using just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he went through the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation 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 impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes new issues, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the game that refuses to open certain locations. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he pulls across universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the world. Some would find these means reason to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban one fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look painful. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He is unable to always duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to use the legendary weapon 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 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.