Twitch Personality Spends 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single 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 self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, while many gamers have attempted to finish the game with just a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a single stick—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he went through the game using only explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no energy. A one-branch run, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire game. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup save has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains full stamina and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a new game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This creates fresh problems, however. The fused save file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the game that fails to load certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is still a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables him to clip through the world. A few would consider these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further uses 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.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The video version of his quest spares the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a stick. He is unable to always clone items during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to use the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.