Twitch Personality Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose special rules on a playthrough. However, while numerous gamers have attempted to complete the game using only a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a single branch—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he went through the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

That causes fresh issues, though. The merged save file has a Link that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load some locations. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the character he transfers between universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a weak item that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. 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 revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows him to phase through the world. A few would find these methods reason to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last several hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate items during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.