Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours 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 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, while numerous gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the game using only explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick run, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole game. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates new problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the game that refuses to load certain areas. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the character he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes battles tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube version of his quest spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone objects during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.