Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose special rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no energy. A one-branch run, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this character gains full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a new save file that combines the states of the first two files.

That causes new problems, though. The fused file has a Link that never obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the title that fails to open certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables him to phase through the environment. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of the game's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The video edit of his quest spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate objects during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.