Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a playthrough. However, although numerous gamers have attempted to complete the game using just a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest tool in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a new save file that combines the states of the original two.

This creates new issues, though. The merged file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that fails to open some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form 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 start of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective item that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that allows him to clip through the world. A few would consider these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow manages to get through several of the game's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The video version of his journey spares the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a stick. He is unable to always duplicate objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned over a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.