Twitch Personality Spends 37 Straight 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 arrived, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, while many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a one branch—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he played the title using only explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the game with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and first tutorial island, and this character gains full endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.

This causes new issues, though. The merged file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the title that fails to open certain locations. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables him to phase through the world. Some would find these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube version of his quest spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects midway the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.