Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply special restrictions on a playthrough. However, although many gamers have attempted to finish the game with only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title using only bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire game. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and creates a new save file that combines the states of the first two files.

This causes fresh problems, though. The merged file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the title that fails to load certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these means reason to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The video version of his quest spares the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game compels the player to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.