Twitch Star Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <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 run out of creative challenge runs that apply unique rules on a playthrough. However, although many players have attempted to complete the game with only a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he went through the game using only explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the game with no stamina. A single stick run, though, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires full endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates new issues, though. The merged save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the title that fails to load some locations. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that enables Link 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 resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban one fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look painful. The video version of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily clone items during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed over 1,000 people in his live stream. Rest in peace.