Twitch Star Spends 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while many players have attempted to complete the game with just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to beat the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the title using only explosives or the attempt where he tried to defeat the story with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, 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 progresses normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts partway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that did not obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the game that refuses to load certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of items to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that enables Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He is unable to always duplicate items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.