Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while many gamers have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a one stick—specifically, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he went through the title using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That causes new issues, though. The fused file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the title that fails to load some locations. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further implements a penalty of kinds stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last several hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.