Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the game using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with zero energy. A single stick run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile tool in the whole world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That causes new issues, however. The merged save file has a Link that never acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to open some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he transfers across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is still a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the environment. A few would find these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his journey spares the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last several long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still only a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed more than 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.