Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to finish the game using only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he played the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with zero stamina. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the whole game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes fresh issues, however. The fused file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the title that refuses to load certain areas. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is still a weak weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that allows him to clip through the environment. Some would consider these means reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through many of the game's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still just a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to use the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.