Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a playthrough. Yet, while numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, such as the time he played the title solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full story, I kid you 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 the creator does a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a third game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This creates new problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the game that refuses to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of items to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that allows Link to clip through the world. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last several long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.