Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while many gamers have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a new save file that combines the states of the first two files.

This creates new issues, though. The fused save file has a Link that did not obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the title that fails to open certain areas. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a situation 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 version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the world. A few would consider these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The video version of his quest spares the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always clone items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the user to wield the legendary weapon as the final strike, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.