Streaming Personality Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while many gamers have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the game with a one branch—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the entire world. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward answer is glitches. The complete story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and hearts. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses midway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new save file that combines the states of the first two files.

That creates fresh problems, however. The merged file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the game that refuses to load certain areas. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to make sure it begins functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the Link he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential friction. The branch is still a ineffective weapon that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. A few would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple long hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned over 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.