Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while many gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with no stamina. A single stick run, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole world. But if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this Link gains full endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the states of the first two files.

This causes new problems, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the game that fails to load certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of items to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that enables him to phase through the world. Some would find these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of the game's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube version of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all just a stick. He can't always clone objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

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