Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <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 run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while many gamers have attempted to complete the game using just a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the game using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole world. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires full endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That creates new problems, however. The merged file has a Link that never obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the title that fails to open some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the Link he pulls between universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that allows him to clip through the environment. A few would find these means grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last several long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still only a stick. He can't always clone objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

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