Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although many players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the game solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with no stamina. A single stick run, though, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest tool in the entire game. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this Link gains maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a third game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That creates new issues, though. The fused file has a Link that never obtain the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to open certain areas. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a weak weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that allows him to clip through the world. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He also uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat several of the game's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.