Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while many gamers have tried to finish the game using only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a one branch—specifically, the very same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the title solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A one-branch run, however, seems impossible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire world. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires full stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the software to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third save file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This creates fresh issues, however. The fused file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an buggy build of the game that fails to open some locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the Link he transfers between universes is the one from the beginning of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that enables Link to phase through the world. Some would find these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily clone items during the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the user to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.