Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a playthrough. However, although many players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, such as the instance he went through the title solely with explosives or the attempt where he tried to beat the game with zero energy. A one-branch run, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly important when working with the weakest tool in the whole game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this Link acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a new save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes fresh issues, though. The merged file has a Link that never obtain the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the title that refuses to load some locations. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to 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 bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is still a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that enables Link to phase through the environment. A few would consider these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look painful. The video version of his quest spares the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them take several hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand users in his live stream. Rest in peace.