Streaming Personality Spends 37 Straight 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 arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a single branch—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is particularly important when working with the weakest tool in the whole game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a new save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This creates new problems, though. The fused file has a Link that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the title that fails to open some locations. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is still a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. Some would find these methods reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.