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

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires maximum stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This creates new problems, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to open certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, likely to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible friction. The branch is still a weak item that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows him to phase through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He also implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them take multiple long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily clone items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.