Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: 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, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a one branch—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with no energy. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this Link gains full endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a third save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That creates new issues, however. The fused file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to load certain locations. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables Link to clip through the world. A few would find these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube version of his journey spares the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects midway the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.