Twitch Star Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, while numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, like the time he went through the game using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with no stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire world. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains full stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the states of the first two files.

That causes fresh problems, though. The fused file has a Link that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to open some locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he transfers across dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of items to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would find these means grounds to discredit the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the viewer sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is after all just a stick. He can't always duplicate items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.