Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although many players have attempted to complete the game using just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the title solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick run, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.

That causes fresh problems, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to load certain locations. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is still a weak item that makes battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also employs a bug that enables him to phase through the environment. A few would find these means grounds to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube version of his quest spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still only a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.