Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, while many gamers have tried to complete the game with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he played the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to beat the game with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new save file that merges the states of the first two files.

This causes fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to open certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that allows him to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also implements a penalty of kinds stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of the game's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The video version of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still only a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone items during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than a thousand users in his live stream. Rest in peace.