Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think 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 unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous gamers have attempted to complete the game using just a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to beat the game with no energy. A single stick run, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly important when working with the weakest weapon in the whole world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this Link acquires maximum endurance and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a new game file that combines the states of the original two.

This causes fresh problems, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the game that refuses to load certain areas. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that enables Link to phase through the environment. Some would consider these methods grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last several long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to use the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.