Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying 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 arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while many gamers have tried to complete the game with only a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the title using only explosives or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this character gains full endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that merges the states of the first two files.

This causes new issues, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the game that refuses to open some locations. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that allows him to phase through the world. Some would consider these means reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also implements a penalty of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is after all just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate objects midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.