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

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while many gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with zero energy. A single stick run, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is particularly important when working with the weakest tool in the whole world. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a new game file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates fresh problems, however. The fused file has a Link that never obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the title that refuses to load certain areas. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that enables Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always clone objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

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