Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, like the instance he played the game solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire world. But if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a third save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That causes new problems, though. The merged file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the title that fails to open certain areas. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The video version of his quest spares the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, 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 1,000 people in his live stream. Rest in peace.