Twitch Star Spends 37 Straight Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although many players have attempted to finish the game using just a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the time he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly important when working with the weakest weapon in the whole game. But if the stick shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this character gains full endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new save file that combines the states of the original two.

This creates new problems, though. The fused file has a Link that did not obtain the capability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the game that fails to open certain locations. As with everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he cannot break any tools he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes battles tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of items to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the environment. A few would find these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He is unable to always clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than a thousand users in his live stream. Rest in peace.