Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous gamers have attempted to complete the game with only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the title using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This creates new issues, however. The merged file has a Link that never obtain the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the title that fails to load certain locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes battles tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of items to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban one fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look painful. The video edit of his quest spares the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still just a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

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