Streaming Personality Spends 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, while many gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a one branch—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he went through the title using only explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and creates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

This causes fresh problems, though. The merged save file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the game that refuses to open certain areas. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the character he pulls between universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is still a ineffective item that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of items to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a glitch that enables Link to clip through the world. Some would consider these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The video version of his quest spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all just a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.