Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. However, while numerous players have tried to complete the game with just a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This creates fresh problems, though. The merged save file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to open certain locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the Link he pulls between universes is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables him to phase through the environment. Some would find these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still only a stick. He can't always duplicate objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.