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

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while many players have attempted to finish the game with only a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a one branch—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire world. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires full endurance and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That causes new issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the title that refuses to load some locations. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts 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 Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables him to phase through the environment. Some would consider these means reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The video edit of his quest spares the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate 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 compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.