Streaming Personality Spends 37 Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. However, although numerous players have attempted to complete the game with just a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the instance he played the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the whole game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link acquires full endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

That causes fresh problems, though. The merged save file has a Link that did not obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to load certain locations. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is still a weak item that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that allows him to phase through the world. Some would find these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video version of his journey spares the audience endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when some of them last several long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to always duplicate items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

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