Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the game using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A one-branch run, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this character gains maximum stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes fresh issues, though. The merged save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the title that fails to open some areas. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows him to phase through the environment. Some would find these means reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them last several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate items during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 people in his live stream. RIP.