Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although many gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the game using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains full stamina and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a new game file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates fresh issues, however. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the game that refuses to open certain areas. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is still a weak weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables him to clip through the world. A few would find these methods grounds to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The video version of his quest spares the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to always duplicate objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.