Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to complete the game using only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the game using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, though, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest tool in the whole world. But if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a third game file that combines the states of the first two files.

This causes fresh issues, though. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the title that refuses to load some locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows him to clip through the world. A few would consider these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible 23 straight. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a stick. He can't always duplicate items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.