Twitch Star Spends 37 Hours Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous players have attempted to complete the game with only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a third game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That causes fresh problems, however. The merged file has a Link that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the title that fails to open some locations. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the character he pulls across universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a weak weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and dedication. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of items to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that allows him to clip through the environment. A few would find these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the audience endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 straight. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still just a piece of wood. He can't always clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over 1,000 people in his live stream. RIP.