Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest tool in the whole game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the states of the first two files.

That causes fresh problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the game that refuses to load some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he transfers across universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective item that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the world. A few would consider these means grounds to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer removed over 1,000 people in his live stream. Rest in peace.