Dark Souls 3: Ashes of Ariandel walkthrough - Snowy Mountain Pass to Chapel of Ariandel

Dark Souls 3: Ashes of Ariandel has a Follower Torch and one more Milwood Knight weapon for you, if you've got the cunning to take them.

In this section of our Dark Souls 3: Ashes of Ariandel walkthrough we'll collect the mace the Milwood Knights use and open a path right back to the Rope Bridge Cave. If you're a cheeseburger assassin, make sure you bring lots and lots of arrows with you on this journey; there'll be a heck of a lot of luring and sniping.

As you begin to approach the path away from the Snowy Mountain Pass bonfire you’ll see two Followers patrol away up the left path ahead, under a log bridge. Don’t chase them: there’s a sentry waiting ahead, and if he spots you he’ll scream and call all his mates, which is awful. As such, you want to clear out as many individual Followers as you can before you aggro him unless you’re really sure you can take a pack down fast.

Start by luring one or both of the patrollers back to you and taking them down on this side of the log bridge. Next, head right before you pass under the log bridge to take out the torch Follower on the side path. Follow the hill around a corner where a spear and shield Follower ambushes you (and usually falls off the cliff if you dodge). There are no further enemies or any treasure on this path so just drop back down to the bonfire. From the bonfire, scan the high ground above and you should spot another Follower you can snipe.

Advance up the path a bit, pausing every few steps as you go under the log bridge. This should case a few Followers to wake up and start bumbling about. Kill as many as you can one by one, keeping an eye on the slope just above you on the right; when a Follower with a torch turns up and stands overlooking the canyon, that’s your sentry. Don’t let him see you.

When you’re confident you’ve killed as many Followers as you can spot without giving yourself away (don’t miss the one crouched by the tree where the sentry stands!) go ham on the sentry. You should only have to deal with one or two extra baddies if you've been thorough.

Now, you’re supposed to take the main (lower) path and grab the item around the corner, but if you instead take the steep little path on the right just after the log bridge you can jump onto the rocks nearby and get onto the log bridge itself. This allows you an easier approach on the two spear-throwing Followers who may still be here; they don't always seem to react to the sentry. Don’t miss the titanite chunk up here, either. On the other side of the log bridge, you can activate a shortcut lift and snipe two Followers you’d otherwise meet later. When you’re done, drop or walk down onto the main path and grab that item – it’s a set of prism stones.

This whole canyon area is very difficult to give directions in but luckily there’s not much to miss. Clear the many Followers out carefully as you proceed to avoid a mob situation; listen for their throaty breathing, don't miss the ones sitting or lying down, and stick to high ground where possible so you can see them in advance. Thankfully, none of the other torch bearers seem to be sentries so you don't need to be super careful.

When you see a fallen bell, drop down to the lowest level and search along the edge overlooking the church tower for a titanite chunk. Hug the right wall after this to come to a large clearing likewise overlooking the church. The tree at the end can be felled to provide a shortcut. The ramp in this area is a dead end for now but remember it.

Now, a warning: proceed much further into this area and you'll probably encounter a sheet of ice that crumbles, dropping you down with two Milwood Knights. If this happens to you, leg it for the high ground on the right; the twisted path will drop you back around in safety. If you go up that ramp I mentioned earlier you can find a nice vantage point to snipe the one with the mace, but the one with the axe regenerates health too quickly. Be careful not to make them so mad they figure out how to get to you! They usually forget you exist about one third of the way up the nearby path, but you never know.

If you want, you can sprint or sneak into the lower area the knights are patrolling and grab three souls – that’s all the item glows are – but watch out for the third Milwood Knight with a greatbow on the opposite side of the canyon, who will take shots at you if he’s been aggro’d, and for wolves which may or may not drop down to the fray depending on whether you’ve stirred them up already.

Update: Okay fine, I killed the damn knights. I nearly literally died in the real world doing it, but it's done, and I can now confirm that there's a cave down here where you can find the Earthshaker weapon. Let's never go back.

With that area cleared out or avoided, let's go grab some treasure and move on out of here. As you explore the canyons and clear out followers, search the lower ground for a small cave with two Followers feigning death and an ember. From this cave, head towards the abyss edge and hug the left wall around to pass behind a stone pillar to find the Follower Shield - and the obligatory Follower waiting to ambush you. You can drop down to this area from the higher ground behind the pillar if you prefer.

From the abyss edge near the shield, look for an item glow on a ledge further along. To get here you need to head back towards the ice sheet and bell and follow the path around, battling any Followers still in the area, to reach a junction guarded by a wolf; let it patrol away to the right (uphill) to avoid the rest of its mates turning up when it howls.

Don't follow the wolf; turn left and go downhill to fight a second wolf and collect that item glow, which turns out to be two titanite chunks. Continue on this path as it switchbacks around and further down to fight a well-hidden Follower with a torch, and grab your very own Follower Torch. Nice.

Now return to the junction and go in the same direction as the wolf did - uphill. You'll encounter the wolf and a few friends - usually three, but sometimes less if they've fallen down into the pit with the Milwood Knights.

There are two paths leading away from the area where the wolves usually hang out - one off towards the sniping Milwood Knight and another little dead end, where you'll encounter a red-eyed Milwood Knight with a greatbow. If you love cheese, you can easily out-snipe this guy from the shelter of the rocky wall; go for headshots for maximum efficiency. He’s guarding the Quakestone Hammer, the mace some of the Milwood Knights use, so he's well worth taking out once. You can ignore him otherwise.

The main path is the one that leads up towards the sniping Milwood Knight opposite the ice fall, and there is, unfortunately, a melee Milwood Knight on the path too. He’s an axe guy, so he can’t be sniped.

We can still cheese him, because I was not in the mood for a fight on this rubbish terrain and determined to find a better solution. Aggro him properly and lead him a merry chase down around the canyons until he’s well away from his starting position, so you can get past him and onto the path. If he goes idle somewhere you can sneak around him, great! If not, just get behind him then sprint away and he’ll forget you once you’re out of line of sight. Leave him to his business, guarding nothing. If you’re very lucky he may even fall off a cliff, but don’t count on it and don't tempt fate dancing around on the edge.

Now you can go have a sniping battle with that shithead who's been taking pot shots at you on the upper path. Get out of sight and give him time to forget you, and you'll be able to steal along the path until you're within bowshot, but the tree near him is still between you to shield you from his shots. Use this shelter to protect yourself, and pop out between his attacks to drop an arrow in him. If your bow damage is decent he’ll stagger with each shot, so you can get three or four quick body shots in before stepping smartly away to get your stamina back while he gets of another round. Rinse and repeat to put an end to his harassment. He dropped a heavy gem for me, which was nice.

Continue up the path, then drop down from the sniper’s former perch to grab the titanite shards. Now for goodness sake: go to the red tree and knock it over so we can avoid doing this crawl ever again - even if you die in the four minutes of play between here and the next bonfire.

Turn around and head into the tunnel opposite the (now fallen) red tree. There are loads of bugs in here and aggro’ing one usually brings at least a couple more down on you. I found it easiest to back into the tunnel and funnel them, but they can jump over your head so you may still be surrounded.

When you're safe, head in. There’s a tempting item glow on a beam on one side of the room; it’s just some dung pies, and you’ll be ambushed from above by a bug when you go for it.

Our path forward (probably) goes through an illusory wall and down into the pit below, but first, let’s hit the nearest bonfire. Skirt the edge of the pit to cross to the other side and go through the tower. Climb the spiral staircase and open the door to reach the Chapel of Ariandel bonfire; don’t mistakenly attack the NPC in here if this is your first visit.

Ready to move on? Excellent. We'll now open the path from the Chapel of Ariandel to Sister Friede.