Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special rules on a gameplay session. However, while numerous gamers have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to beat the story with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new save file that merges the states of the first two files.

This creates new problems, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to load some areas. Like everything else, 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 functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a scenario 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 start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is still a weak item that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that allows Link to phase through the environment. A few would find these means grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his quest spares the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take several long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.