Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have attempted to finish the game with just a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, such as the time he played the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this Link acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a third game file that merges the states of the first two files.

That causes fresh problems, though. The merged save file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the game that refuses to load certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the Link he pulls across universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the world. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube version of his quest spares the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone items during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.