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

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this Link acquires full stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new game file that combines the states of the first two files.

That creates fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that refuses to load certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that allows Link to phase through the world. A few would find these methods grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The YouTube version of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a stick. He can't necessarily clone objects during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

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