Twitch Star Spends 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to complete the game with just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the title using only bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new game file that combines the states of the original two.

That causes fresh problems, though. The merged save file has a Link that never obtain the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the game that fails to load certain areas. As with everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. A few would find these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The video version of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer removed over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.