Twitch Star Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, while many gamers have tried to finish the game with just a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a one branch—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the game using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A one-branch run, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire game. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full story, 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” save where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this character acquires full endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a new save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That causes new issues, however. The merged file has a Link that never obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the game that fails to load some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is still a weak item that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the world. A few would find these methods reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video edit of his journey spares the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.