Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although many gamers have tried to complete the game using only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to defeat the story with zero stamina. A single stick run, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this character gains maximum stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new game file that combines the states of the original two.

This causes fresh problems, however. The merged file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the title that fails to load some locations. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the character he pulls between universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful supply of items to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. A few would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of the game's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube version of his journey spares the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them take multiple hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate objects during the fight.

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

In the end, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.