Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight 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 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that apply special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous gamers have tried to finish the game with just a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a one stick—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the game using only bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This creates new problems, however. The merged file has a Link that did not obtain the capability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the title that refuses to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he transfers across universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to question the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also implements a penalty of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The video version of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last multiple hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.