Twitch Personality Dedicates 37 Hours Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he played the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to beat the story with no stamina. A one-branch run, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward answer is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires full endurance and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a third game file that combines the states of the first two files.

This creates fresh problems, though. The fused save file has a Link that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that refuses to load some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows him to clip through the world. A few would find these methods reason to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look painful. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible 23 straight. The final villain showdown, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the user to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.