Twitch Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while many players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the whole game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That causes new issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that did not obtain the ability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of items to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the world. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube version of his quest spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 straight. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all only a piece of wood. He can't always clone objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.