Twitch Star Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while numerous gamers have attempted to complete the game using only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the title solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole world. But if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.

This causes new problems, though. The fused save file has a Link that never acquired the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the game that refuses to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of items to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last several long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.