Streaming Personality Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although many gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a one branch—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he went through the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when working with the weakest weapon in the entire game. But if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward 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 “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

That causes new issues, however. The fused save file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to load some areas. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of items to boost his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that allows Link to phase through the environment. A few would consider these means reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The video edit of his quest spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still only a stick. He can't necessarily clone objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed over 1,000 people in his live stream. Rest in peace.