Streaming Personality Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that apply unique rules on a playthrough. However, although many players have tried to complete the game using just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A one-branch run, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link gains full stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new save file that combines the states of the original two.

That causes fresh issues, however. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load certain locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the character he pulls between universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is still a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these means grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video version of his quest spares the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them take several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.