Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while many gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That causes fresh problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the title that fails to load some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of items to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that enables him to clip through the world. Some would consider these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of the game's bosses, but the battles look painful. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them take multiple long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He is unable to always duplicate items during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form 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 people in his live stream. RIP.