Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply unique rules on a playthrough. However, while numerous gamers have tried to complete the game using just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the title using only explosives or the attempt where he tried to beat the game with no stamina. A single stick run, though, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile tool in the whole world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new save file that combines the states of the first two files.

That causes fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the game that fails to load certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls between universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful supply of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that enables him to clip through the environment. Some would find these means grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

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