Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply special restrictions on a playthrough. However, while many players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he went through the game using only explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the story with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the whole game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains full endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the states of the first two files.

That causes fresh problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the title that refuses to load certain locations. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he transfers across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is still a ineffective item that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables him to phase through the world. A few would consider these means grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last several hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.