Twitch Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous players have attempted to complete the game with just a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the time he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly important when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a new save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That causes fresh issues, however. The merged file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to load certain areas. As with everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the Link he transfers across dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows him to clip through the world. Some would consider these means grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube version of his journey spares the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a piece of wood. He can't always clone objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.