Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a playthrough. However, although many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this Link gains full stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a new game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates new issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the game that refuses to load certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that enables Link to phase through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further implements a penalty of kinds stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The video version of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily clone items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than 1,000 people in his live stream. Rest in peace.