Streaming Star Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Stick

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while numerous gamers have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the game with a single stick—meaning, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the time he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the intro and initial starting area, and this character acquires maximum stamina and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates new issues, however. The merged save file has a Link that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the title that refuses to open certain locations. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the character he pulls between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The stick is nonetheless a weak item that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that allows him to clip through the environment. A few would find these methods grounds to question the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of the game's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The video version of his journey spares the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last several long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to always clone items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned more than 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.