Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a playthrough. Yet, although many players have attempted to finish the game using just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, such as the time he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A single stick run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire world. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this Link acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the states of the first two files.

That creates fresh issues, however. The merged save file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the title that refuses to load some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is still a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that allows him to phase through the environment. Some would consider these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He also uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove 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 bosses, but the fights look painful. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.