Streaming Star Spends 37 Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although many players have attempted to finish the game with only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch run, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character gains full stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and creates a new game file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates new problems, though. The fused save file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the title that refuses to load some areas. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the character he transfers across universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective item that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look painful. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them last several hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned over 1,000 people in his live stream. Rest in peace.