Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: 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 debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose special rules on a playthrough. However, while many gamers have attempted to complete the game with just a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a one stick—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he played the title solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the stick breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. 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 “setup” save where he advances normally, and the actual save, 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 triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.

That causes new issues, though. The fused file has a Link that never obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the game that fails to open certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective item that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that allows him to phase through the environment. Some would consider these means grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his journey spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take several long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still only a stick. He can't necessarily clone objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed more than 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.