Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous gamers have tried to finish the game with just a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero energy. A one-branch run, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the intro and initial 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 load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that merges the states of the first two files.

That creates new issues, however. The merged file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the game that fails to load some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the Link he transfers between universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the world. Some would find these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The video version of his journey spares the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them take several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.