Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, such as the instance he played the title using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire world. But if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a new save file that combines the states of the original two.

This creates new issues, though. The fused file has a Link that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to open some locations. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the Link he pulls between dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows him to phase through the environment. A few would find these means reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The YouTube version of his journey spares the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take several long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all only a stick. He can't always duplicate objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.