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

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply special rules on a gameplay session. However, while numerous players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the game using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this character gains full stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.

This causes fresh issues, though. The merged save file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to open some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any tools he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is still a ineffective item that makes battles tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also employs a bug that allows Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to get through several of the game's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his quest spares the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone items during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. 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 playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.