Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, although many players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who endeavored to clear the game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the title solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with zero stamina. A one-branch run, however, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole world. But if the stick shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires full endurance and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and creates a new save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That causes new issues, however. The merged save file has a Link that did not acquired the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to open some locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is still a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables him to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The video version of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a stick. He can't always duplicate items during the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.