Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the story with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this character acquires maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a new save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That causes fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the game that fails to open certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the character he transfers across universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that enables him to clip through the world. A few would consider these methods reason to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned over 1,000 people in his live stream. Rest in peace.