Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply special rules on a gameplay session. However, while many players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a single stick—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he went through the title using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with zero energy. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the entire game. But if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third save file that merges the states of the first two files.

That causes fresh problems, however. The fused save file has a Link that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an buggy build of the title that refuses to open certain areas. As with 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 partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the character he pulls between universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the world. Some would consider these means reason to question the validity of the attempt, 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 stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube version of his journey spares the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them take multiple hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a stick. He can't necessarily clone objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the player to wield the legendary weapon as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.