Twitch Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <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 arrived, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although many players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, like the instance he went through the game using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with no energy. A single stick run, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this character acquires maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that never obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to open some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he transfers across universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that makes battles tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of items to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables him to phase through the world. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also implements a penalty of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube version of his journey spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a stick. He is unable to always clone objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.