Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the time he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances normally, 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 endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a new game file that merges the states of the original two.

That creates new problems, though. The merged save file has a Link that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the title that refuses to load certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he cannot 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 PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of items to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that allows him to clip through the world. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all only a piece of wood. He can't always clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than a thousand users in his live stream. Rest in peace.