Twitch Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the story with zero energy. A single stick run, though, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this character acquires full endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a new game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes new issues, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, 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 starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak item that renders encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a glitch that enables Link to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.