Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply special rules on a playthrough. Yet, while many gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the time he played the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism 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 going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this character gains maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a third game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That causes new problems, though. The merged file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the title that fails to open certain areas. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a scenario where the user gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he pulls across universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally employs a bug that allows Link to clip through the world. A few would consider these means grounds to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey doesn't make the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them take multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.