Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special rules on a playthrough. Yet, while numerous gamers have tried to finish the game using only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the title solely with explosives or the attempt where he tried to beat the game with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest weapon in the entire world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires full endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts partway through to instruct the game to load an auto-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 creates new problems, though. The merged file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to open some locations. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It further 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 makes use of a bug that allows Link to clip through the world. A few would consider these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned over a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.