Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose special rules on a playthrough. Yet, although many gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That creates new issues, though. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to open some areas. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the character he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to clip through the world. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them last several hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still only a stick. He can't always duplicate objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.