Twitch Personality Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a single branch—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick run, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. But if the stick breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

This causes fresh issues, though. The merged file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the game that refuses to open certain locations. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he pulls between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that enables him to phase through the environment. A few would find these methods reason to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, 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

The streamer manages to defeat several of the game's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The video edit of his quest spares the audience sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always clone items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.