Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting 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 debuted, fans would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although many gamers have attempted to finish the game using only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a single branch—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he went through the title solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire world. But if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That creates new problems, though. The merged save file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the game that refuses to open some locations. 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 software midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a weak item that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He also uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to get through many of the game's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The video edit of his journey spares the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.