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

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges 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 PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he went through the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The preparatory save has him going through the intro and initial starting area, and this Link acquires full stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and creates a third save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That creates fresh issues, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy version of the game that fails to load certain areas. As with everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he transfers across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all possible friction. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders encounters onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that allows Link to clip through the world. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player 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 employs, he'll ban one viewer from his live stream, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The video version of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone items during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.