Twitch Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a playthrough. However, although numerous players have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he played the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the entire game. But if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link gains full endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.

This causes new issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of items to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the world. A few would consider these means grounds to discredit the validity of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The video version of his journey spares the audience sit through the entire fights, which is a good thing when some of them take several hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He can't always duplicate items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

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