Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a playthrough. However, although many players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a one stick—meaning, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the title using only explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. But if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains full endurance and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a new game file that combines the states of the first two files.

That creates fresh problems, however. The merged save file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the title that refuses to load some locations. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. A few would consider these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The video version of his journey spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them take multiple long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.