Twitch Star Spends 37 Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a playthrough. Yet, although many gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he played the title using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch run, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the whole game. But if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a new save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That causes new issues, though. The merged file has a Link that never obtain the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the title that refuses to load some locations. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he pulls between universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows Link to clip through the world. A few would find these methods reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat several of the game's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video version of his quest spares the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible branch is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.