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

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose special rules on a playthrough. However, while many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile tool in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this character acquires maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new game file that merges the states of the original two.

That causes new issues, however. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the title that refuses to open some areas. As with everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he transfers across dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat several of the game's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still only a stick. He can't always clone objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. 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.