Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although many players have attempted to finish the game using only a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a one stick—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for such challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the game with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This creates new problems, however. The fused save file has a Link that never obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to load some locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows Link to clip through the world. A few would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, 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 a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the audience endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when some of them last several long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still just a stick. He is unable to always clone items during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.