Dark Souls 3 Guide: High Wall of Lothric area guide

Alright, you’ve beaten Iudex Gundyr, you’ve opened up Firelink Shrine, and you’re feeling pretty pleased with yourself. Welcome to the High Wall of Lothric, the first real area of Dark Souls 3 ready to give you a light-to-mild ass whupping and take you down a peg or two. This guide, rather than giving you a complete walkthrough and robbing you of all the fun of discovery, will only rob you of some of it with the locations of the bonfires, shortcuts, and key items in the area.

High Wall of Lothric bonfires

High Wall of Lothric bonfire in Dark Souls 3

Alright, we’re including this for the sake of completeness, but if you miss it then you’re probably beyond the help of mere guides. When you first travel to the area from Firelink Shrine you’ll appear in a small room, the better to open a door and be awestruck by the grandeur and scale of Lothric. Anyway, open the door, go down the stairs, and light the bonfire.

Tower on the Wall bonfire in Dark Souls 3

From the first bonfire, head down the stairs on the left to encounter a bunch of hollow enemies. Only four will actually aggro, but you can kill the others for some easy souls. Go down the stairs by the dead dragon – yes, those are legit directions – and into a new room with a hatch in the middle of the floor. Drop into the hatch (or, you know, use the ladder) and exit onto some battlements.

There are a bunch of hollow soldiers along the battlements to the left and up the stairs to the right, but there’s also an alive dragon. He’ll start breathing fire and if you stand on the wooden platform on the stairs, or just sprint through with good timing, you won’t get hit but all the hollows will be conveniently taken out.You can take either path, because they both lead the same way: round to a new tower. It’s guarded by an armoured knight, so watch out for him. Once he’s dead, or if you’ve decided to run past and deal with him later, go into the tower and straight through the doorway on the right. Go up to the top of the tower and voila! The new bonfire awaits.

Vordt of the Boreal Valley bonfire in Dark Souls 3

Appears after you defeat Vordt of the Boreal Valley. As you might expect from the name.

High Wall of Lothric shortcuts in Dark Souls 3

The High Wall is a (comparatively) small area and though it’s dense it’s not too difficult to run through. There’s only one shortcut to be found, which opens up a lift between the first bonfire and the boss of the area, Vordt of the Boreal Valley.

To find the lift, go to the bonfire at the Tower on the Wall. Head into the tower and down a floor (you should be one above the level with a big pike-wielding hollow). Go out of the door, through onto the rooftops, and head right – watch out for the potential abyss beast on the left. Go down the ladder at the far right end of the roofs and decide which way you’re going into the Winged Knight’s courtyard: either ahead past the undead crossbowman and his mates and down the ladder, or behind you and through the dilapidated house out onto a balcony. The first option puts you past some much stronger enemies, but it gives you a better approach if you’re planning to fight the Knight, especially if you’re a spellcaster.

Either way, you’ll want to get through the archway across the courtyard (on your right if you’ve come down the ladder, or your left if you’re standing on the balcony). Once you get through it take an immediate right and run up the stairs – if you see an undead crossbowman you’re on the right track – and keep going straight, watching out for a big ambush from the right once you’ve left the stairs. Luckily the lift is through the doorway right in front of you!

The top of the lift brings you really close to the first bonfire (it’s up the stairs, right, and then up more stairs) while the bottom of it is close to Vordt of the Boreal Valley (if you run down the stairs you can hang an immediate right and down a couple of small-ish drops to the grand staircase to him).You just opened up loads of the map with ease! It’s a whole new world!

Key items at the High Wall of Lothric in Dark Souls 3

Binoculars

For seeing far away things with. At the first bonfire, go left to the crashed/dead dragon and, instead of heading down the stairs by his head, go left. You should find some stairs leading up and around to the rest of his body. There are a couple of enemies to deal with, as well as some more stairs going up to another tower. At the top of these are your binoculars.

Dungeon Cell Key

This key just so happens to open Greirat’s cell. Follow the same path as you would to find the shortcut lift described above, but, when you’ve climbed down the ladder off the rooftops, take the path inside the building (although it’s still wise to take out the crossbow dude first, because he can be a pain in the ass). A knight with a halberd will come through the doorway opposite you. Take him out, and follow where he came from, watching out for an ambush on the left. Immediately right are a load of barrels you can roll through to get onto a catwalk above the room.

The room you’re in has three heavy enemies and two of those annoying attack dogs. You can stay on these catwalks (there’s another one below that you can roll onto, which has a chest with a pretty nice sword in it) and throw projectiles/spells down, which works well if you time it to when an enemy is by one of the groups of fire barrels in the room. You can also avoid the catwalks entirely and go down and around the stairs that lead straight into the room. If you do this be aware that there’s an enemy on a catwalk above who will aggro and start throwing firebombs once a fight kicks off. It’s possible to draw out the enemies one by one if you have projectiles like throwing knives or soul darts.

Whatever the case, once everyone has been dealt with you can go to a little staircase to nowhere in the corner of the room, at the bottom of which is a dog, and the key. You can also just run in, grab the key, and sprint out again if you like to live dangerously.

Estus Shard

This is in the same room as above, on a table against the wall. It’s extremely useful to get one of these before any boss fights, so this is worth a death sacrifice for if you can’t take out all the enemies in the room.

Small Lothric Banner

This is apparently a thing people have missed. See, even if you’ve defeated Vordt of the Boreal Valley you won’t be able to leave Lothric until you’ve raised this banner. It’s not far, though. Once you’ve found that big staircase (near the shortcut lift) that has Vordt’s room at the bottom, you’ve also basically found the cathedral at the very top of them. Run inside and speak to Emma, the High Priestess of Lothric Castle. She’ll give you the banner, and, if you speak to her again, the Way of Blue covenant, which automatically summons blue spirits to help you out if you get invaded by another player.

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