Streaming Star Spends 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while many gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, like the instance he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no energy. A one-branch run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to tell 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.

That creates fresh problems, though. The merged save file has a Link that never obtain the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to load certain locations. As with everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible branch is after all only a stick. He is unable to always clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

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