Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while many gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the game using only explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the game with zero energy. A single stick run, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates new problems, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that refuses to open certain areas. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these methods reason to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to get through many of the game's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them take several long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all just a stick. He can't necessarily clone items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

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