Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have tried to finish the game with only a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he went through the game using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to beat the story with no stamina. A single stick run, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile tool in the whole world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a new game file that combines the states of the first two files.

That causes new issues, however. The fused file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that refuses to load certain locations. As with everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of items to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The video edit of his journey spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them take several hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible 23 straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.