Twitch Personality Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, while many players have attempted to finish the game with just a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a single branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A one-branch run, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this character gains full stamina and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that combines the states of the original two.

This causes new issues, however. The merged file has a Link that did not obtain the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the title that fails to load certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the character he transfers across universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective item that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to phase through the world. Some would find these means reason to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last several long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the player to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

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