Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he went through the title solely with explosives or the attempt where he tried to defeat the story with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the weakest tool in the entire game. But if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this Link acquires full endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That causes new problems, though. The merged file has a Link that never obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the game that refuses to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the character he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. Some would find these methods reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The YouTube version of his quest spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them take several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is after all only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone items during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.