Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <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, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while many gamers have tried to finish the game with only a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title using only explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with zero energy. A single stick run, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the states of the original two.

That creates new issues, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the title that refuses to open certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the Link he pulls across universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a glitch that enables Link to clip through the world. Some would consider these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of the game's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube version of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still only a stick. He is unable to always clone objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.