Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a single stick—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game using only bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this Link acquires full endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a new save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That causes fresh problems, however. The fused save file has a Link that did not obtain the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that refuses to load certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the character he transfers across universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of items to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that enables Link to clip through the environment. A few would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take several long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.