Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous players have tried to complete the game with just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a one stick—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he played the game using only explosives or the attempt where he tried to defeat the story with zero stamina. A one-branch run, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially important when working with the weakest tool in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires full endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new game file that merges the states of the first two files.

That creates fresh problems, however. The fused file has a Link that did not obtain the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the game that fails to open certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the character he pulls between universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. A few would consider these means reason to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube version of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over 1,000 people in his live stream. Rest in peace.