Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, while numerous gamers have attempted to complete the game with just a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, like the instance he played the game using only bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no energy. A one-branch run, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a new save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That creates new issues, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to open certain areas. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is still a ineffective item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a bug that allows him to clip through the environment. Some would consider these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.