Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a gameplay session. However, while many players have attempted to complete the game using only a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous 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 zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when working with the most fragile tool in the entire game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character gains maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a new save file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates fresh issues, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the game that refuses to load certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the Link he pulls between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all possible friction. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that makes battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that allows him to clip through the world. A few would consider these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 straight. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is after all only a piece of wood. He can't always clone objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.