Twitch Star Dedicates 37 Hours Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Stick

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply special restrictions on a gameplay session. However, although numerous players have attempted to complete the game using only a stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the player who aimed to clear the game with a single stick—specifically, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such challenge runs, such as the instance he played the game using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no energy. A single stick playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” save where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him completing the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new game file that merges the states of the original two.

That causes new issues, though. The fused file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means depending on an unstable build of the game that refuses to load some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between dimensions is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is still a weak item that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a matter of grit and perseverance. It further aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a glitch that allows him to phase through the world. Some would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear painful. The video version of his quest spares the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a stick. He is unable to necessarily clone items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer banned over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.