Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a gameplay session. However, while numerous players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with no energy. A single stick run, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he progresses 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 maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the states of the original two.

That causes fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. A few would consider these means grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through several of the game's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The video version of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.