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

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose special rules on a playthrough. Yet, although many players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, like the time he went through the title solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro 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 stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This causes new issues, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the character he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders 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 abundant supply of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these means reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The video version of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them take several hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all just a stick. He is unable to always clone items during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.