Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a single branch—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the game solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the whole world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This causes new issues, however. The merged file has a Link that never obtain the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the title that fails to open certain locations. As with everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is programmed 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 the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the character he pulls between universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the environment. Some would find these means reason to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The YouTube version of his quest spares the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when some of them last several hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the player to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned over a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.