Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that two years post-launch since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while many players have tried to complete the game with just a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a single branch—meaning, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the game using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick run, though, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the whole game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The full answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains full stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the software to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a new save file that combines the states of the first two files.

This causes new problems, however. The merged file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that refuses to open some areas. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of grit and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of items to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally employs a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would consider these means reason to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of the game's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube version of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take several long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all just a stick. He can't always clone items during the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.