Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special rules on a playthrough. However, while numerous players have attempted to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he went through the game solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to beat the story with no energy. A single stick playthrough, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially important when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire world. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link acquires maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the software to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets confused and generates a new save file that combines the states of the first two files.

That causes fresh issues, though. The merged file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the title that fails to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he pulls between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak item that renders encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that allows him to clip through the environment. Some would consider these means grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's health as it unfolds, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the player to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than 1,000 people in his live stream. RIP.