Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, although many gamers have tried to finish the game with only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire game. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this Link acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a third game file that combines the states of the first two files.

This creates fresh problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the game that refuses to open some locations. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak item 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 gives him an abundant number of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the environment. A few would consider these means grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The video version of his journey doesn't make the audience endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still just a piece of wood. He can't always clone objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.