Twitch Personality Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous gamers have tried to finish the game using only a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the game with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” save where he advances normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this Link gains maximum stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new save file that combines the states of the first two files.

This causes fresh problems, though. The fused file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the title that refuses to load some locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any tools he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant number of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that enables him to phase through the world. A few would find these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the audience endure the entire fights, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a stick. He is unable to always duplicate objects midway the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.