Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, while numerous players have attempted to complete the game using just a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to clear the game with a single branch—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, such as the time he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when working with the weakest tool in the whole game. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this Link acquires full endurance and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That causes fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the game that refuses to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these means grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all just a stick. He can't always clone objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.