Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although many players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a single branch—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new save file that combines the states of the first two files.

That causes new problems, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the game that fails to open some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the world. A few would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for each spirit 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 Final Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube version of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned more than a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.