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

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, while many players have attempted to complete the game with only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a one stick—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the title solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character gains full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that combines the states of the first two files.

That creates fresh problems, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that fails to open certain locations. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the character he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of items to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables Link to clip through the world. A few would consider these means grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his journey spares the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.