Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a playthrough. However, although numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he played the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the entire world. But if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this Link acquires full endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a third game file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates fresh issues, however. The merged save file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the title that fails to load some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the Link he pulls between dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is still a weak weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods reason to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed more than a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.