Twitch Star Spends 37 Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although numerous gamers have tried to finish the game with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he went through the title using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with no energy. A single stick run, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire world. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets confused and generates a third game file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates new issues, however. The fused save file has a Link that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the title that fails to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them take several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone items midway the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final attack, so technically, 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 people in his live stream. Rest in peace.