Streaming Personality Spends 37 Hours Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the story with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire game. But if the stick breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this Link gains full endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a third game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates new problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to load certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is still a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a bug that enables him to phase through the environment. A few would find these means reason to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube version of his journey spares the audience endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them take several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The final villain battle, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone items during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

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