Streaming Personality Spends 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to beat the game with a single branch—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the time he played the title solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this Link gains maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a new save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That creates fresh issues, though. The merged file has a protagonist that did not acquired the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the game that refuses to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all possible friction. The branch is still a weak weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these means reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them take several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all just a stick. He can't necessarily clone objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.