Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting 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 debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that merges the states of the first two files.

That creates new problems, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to open some locations. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the one 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 item that makes battles tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that enables him to phase through the environment. A few would find these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still only a stick. He can't always clone objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.