Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <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 debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while many gamers have tried to complete the game with just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to beat the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the title solely with bombs or the effort where he tried to beat the story with zero energy. A single stick run, however, seems unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the whole world. But if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have separate game sessions that affect one another. So the creator creates a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third game file that combines the states of the first two files.

That creates fresh problems, however. The fused file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load certain locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective item that makes encounters onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of items to improve his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to phase through the environment. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube version of his journey spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when some of them take multiple hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain battle, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items during the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than 1,000 users in his live stream. RIP.