Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply unique rules on a playthrough. However, although many gamers have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a single branch—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the title using only explosives or the attempt where he tried to beat the game with no stamina. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially important when working with the most fragile tool in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires full stamina and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a new save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates fresh issues, however. The fused save file has a Link that never obtain the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the title that refuses to load some locations. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that allows Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 people in his live stream. RIP.