Streaming Personality Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous gamers have tried to finish the game with only a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a single branch—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the effort where he tried 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 use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. But if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.

This creates new issues, though. The merged save file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to load some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the Link he transfers between universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a weak weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows him to clip through the environment. A few would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone objects during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.