Twitch Star Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title solely with explosives or the attempt where he tried to defeat the story with zero energy. A one-branch run, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward answer is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that combines the states of the original two.

This creates new problems, however. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to load some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these means reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The video version of his journey spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take several hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow banned more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.