Twitch Star Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while many players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the time he went through the game solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the entire world. But if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link gains maximum stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This creates new issues, however. The fused save file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the title that refuses to load some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that allows Link to phase through the environment. A few would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The YouTube version of his journey spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.