Streaming Star Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while numerous players have tried to finish the game using only a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he played the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with zero energy. A single stick run, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link gains maximum stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That causes fresh issues, though. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to load some areas. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

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