Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while many players have tried to complete the game using just a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game using only explosives or the attempt where he tried to beat the story with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, though, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates new issues, however. The merged save file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the game that fails to open certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the character he pulls between universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a weak item that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that allows him to phase through the world. Some would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat several of the game's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them take multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.