Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a playthrough. However, although many gamers have attempted to complete the game with just a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a one branch—specifically, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the game using only bombs 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 game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the entire world. 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 exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save 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 hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new game file that merges the states of the first two files.

This causes fresh issues, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to open certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the Link he pulls between dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the environment. Some would consider these methods reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The video version of his journey spares the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.