Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous players have attempted to finish the game using only a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a single branch—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no stamina. A single stick run, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this character acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That causes fresh problems, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the title that refuses to open certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he transfers across dimensions is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that allows him to clip through the world. Some would find these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

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