Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, while many gamers have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the title using only explosives or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole world. But if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a third game file that merges the states of the original two.

That causes fresh issues, though. The merged save file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the game that refuses to open some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that allows him to phase through the environment. Some would consider these means grounds to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the audience endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when some of them last several hours. One 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 indestructible branch is still just a stick. He is unable to always duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.