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

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, while numerous players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the title using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with zero energy. A single stick run, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the stick breaks, 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 alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this character gains full endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

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

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the Link he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that enables Link to clip through the world. A few would consider these means grounds to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to always clone objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned over 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.