Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours 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 debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with zero energy. A one-branch run, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a third save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This creates new issues, however. The fused 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 executing it means depending on an unstable version of the title that fails to load some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective item that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of items to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows him to clip through the environment. Some would consider these means grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban one fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The video edit of his quest spares the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take several long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily clone items during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.