Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that apply unique rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single stick—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the game using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly relevant when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. But if the stick breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character acquires full endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct 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 conditions of the first two files.

That creates new problems, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load some locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the character he pulls across universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that makes battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. A few would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He also uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look painful. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing 23 straight. The final villain battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still only a stick. He can't necessarily clone items during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow banned over 1,000 people in his live stream. RIP.