Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while many players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he went through the game solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the whole world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and creates a third save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates new problems, however. The merged save file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the game that fails to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he transfers across dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that enables him to phase through the environment. A few would consider these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube version of his quest spares the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take several hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.