Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while many gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a single branch—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with no energy. A single stick run, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file 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 gains maximum stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That creates new issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the title that refuses to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last several long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is after all only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over a thousand users in his live stream. Rest in peace.