Streaming Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although many gamers have tried to finish the game with only a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to beat the game with a one stick—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the time he played the game solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, however, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. But if the stick breaks, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the software to load an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that combines the states of the first two files.

This creates new problems, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the game that fails to load certain areas. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he pulls between dimensions is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful supply of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that enables him to phase through the environment. Some would consider these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is after all just a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.