Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a single branch—specifically, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the title using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a new game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That causes new problems, though. The fused file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the title that refuses to load certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat several of the game's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take several long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He can't necessarily clone objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

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