Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One 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 impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, while many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he went through the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, though, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially important when working with the most fragile tool in the entire game. But if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum stamina and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and creates a new save file that combines the states of the first two files.

This causes new issues, though. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the game that fails to load some locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the Link he pulls between universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that allows Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through several of the game's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple 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 nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily clone items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed more than a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.