Twitch Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while many players have tried to finish the game using just a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a new game file that merges the states of the first two files.

That creates fresh problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the game that refuses to load certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the Link he pulls between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these means reason to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look painful. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over 1,000 people in his live stream. RIP.