Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to finish the game with only a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to beat the adventure with a one stick—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the game solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the story with no energy. A single stick run, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile tool in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires full endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the stick file. The game gets confused and creates a new game file that combines the states of the first two files.

That creates new problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not obtain the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the title that refuses to open some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he transfers between universes is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. A few would find these methods 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 engage his audience. He also implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he employs, he'll remove a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The video version of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is still only a stick. He can't necessarily clone items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the player to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed more than 1,000 people in his live stream. RIP.