Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, while many players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a one branch—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the entire world. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a new save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This causes fresh issues, though. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the title that fails to open some locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of items to boost his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the world. A few would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take several long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the user to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed over a thousand users in his live stream. Rest in peace.