Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply special restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, like the instance he went through the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a new save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the game that fails to load certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that enables him 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 willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of the game's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take several hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.