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

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. However, while many players have tried to finish the game using only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the time he went through the game solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the entire world. But if the stick shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a new game file that merges the states of the first two files.

That causes new issues, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to open certain areas. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that allows him to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He can't always clone objects during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.