Streaming Personality Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a one stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he went through the game solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with zero energy. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full story, 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 the creator creates a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.

This causes new issues, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to load some locations. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the world. A few would consider these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube version of his journey spares the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 straight. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.