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

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while many gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires 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 branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new game file that combines the states of the first two files.

This creates new problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the title that refuses to load some locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective item that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a bug that enables him to phase through the world. Some would find these means grounds to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look painful. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone items during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed more than a thousand users in his live stream. Rest in peace.