Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a single branch—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to beat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the entire game. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this character gains full endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and creates a new save file that combines the states of the original two.

That creates new issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the title that refuses to open certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the character he transfers across universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is still a ineffective item that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that allows Link to phase through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He also uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He is unable to always clone items during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.