Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a single branch—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new game file that combines the states of the first two files.

That creates fresh problems, though. The merged file has a Link that did not obtain the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the title that refuses to open certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution 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.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the one from the start 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 encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that allows him to clip through the world. Some would find these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing 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 the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to use the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.