Streaming Personality Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose unique rules on a playthrough. However, while numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the title using only explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

This creates new issues, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of items to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables Link to phase through the environment. Some would consider these methods reason to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The video version of his journey spares the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is after all just a stick. He can't necessarily clone objects midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software forces the player to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.