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

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to complete the game with just a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest tool in the whole game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes new problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to open some areas. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that allows him to phase through the environment. A few would find these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still only a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. 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.