Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Straight Trying 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 self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous gamers have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, streamer the streamer holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a single stick—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he played the game using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero stamina. A single stick run, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability system, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest tool in the entire game. Yet if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this Link gains maximum stamina and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a new game file that merges the states of the first two files.

This creates new problems, however. The fused file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the game that refuses to load some locations. As with everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability issue, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It further aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that enables Link to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of sorts stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat many of the game's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube version of his journey spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them last several long hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is after all only a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow manages to overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

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