Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous gamers have attempted to complete the game with only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he played the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially important when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he progresses normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character gains full endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That creates fresh issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the title that refuses to load certain areas. As with everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to get through many of the game's bosses, but the battles look painful. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all just a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer removed over a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.