Twitch Star Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a gameplay session. However, although many players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he played the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the weakest weapon in the entire game. But if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? 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 game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That creates new problems, however. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to open certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the character he transfers across universes is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of items to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that enables Link to clip through the environment. Some would find these means grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The YouTube version of his journey spares the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.