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

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. However, while many players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, like the instance he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially important when working with the weakest weapon in the whole game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete story, 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 affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a new save file that combines the states of the first two files.

That causes fresh problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the title that fails to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that allows him to phase through the world. Some would find these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video edit of his journey spares the audience sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a stick. He is unable to always clone items during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.