Twitch Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while numerous gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile tool in the entire world. But if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a third game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This creates new issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to open certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is still a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables Link to phase through the environment. A few would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look painful. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to always clone items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.