Twitch Star Dedicates 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <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, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous players have tried to finish the game with just a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this character acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That causes new problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to open some locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he pulls between universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them take several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all only a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. 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 playthrough. But what fun is that?

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