Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while numerous gamers have attempted to finish the game with only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he went through the title using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A one-branch run, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new game file that combines the states of the first two files.

This causes fresh issues, though. The fused file has a Link that never obtain the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the title that fails to load some areas. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the world. Some would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of the game's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The video edit of his journey spares the audience endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when some of them last several hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.