Twitch Personality Spends 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One 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 creative challenge runs that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have tried to finish the game with only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a one stick—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he went through the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with zero stamina. A single stick run, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. But if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates fresh problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to load certain locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the Link he transfers across universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective item that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that allows Link to phase through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also implements a penalty of kinds stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The YouTube version of his journey spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them last several long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a stick. He can't always clone objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.