Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the title using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this character gains full stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That creates fresh problems, though. The merged save file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he cannot break any tools he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the character he pulls across universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the world. A few would consider these means grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last several hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

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