Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, while many gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a one branch—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick run, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole world. But if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link acquires full stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that merges the states of the first two files.

This causes new issues, though. The fused file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to load some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the world. Some would find these means grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also implements a penalty of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.