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

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the game solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. But if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains full endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new game file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that never acquired the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the title that refuses to open some areas. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is still a weak item that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows Link to phase through the environment. Some would consider these means reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still just a piece of wood. He can't always clone items during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the player to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer removed over a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.