Streaming Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while many players have attempted to complete the game with only a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this character gains full endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That creates fresh issues, however. The merged file has a Link that never obtain the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the title that fails to load certain areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the character he pulls across dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a weak item that makes battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant number of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables Link to clip through the world. Some would consider these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to get through several of the game's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the user to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

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