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

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he went through the title using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick run, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire world. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That causes new problems, however. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the game that fails to open some locations. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables Link to clip through the world. A few 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 anything necessary to engage his audience. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when some of them take several long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still just a stick. He can't necessarily clone objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game compels the player to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.