Holiday 2025 Collab: Dark Souls Winter Areas

21 Dec, 2025

gif of the Boreal Valley bonfire from Dark Souls 3. It shows a bonfire in the foreground, with a long bridge going to a city. It's nightime, with a big full moon and snow coming down

Artist Unknown

I absolutely love winter themed aesthetics. Snow villages in the mountains, to frost based powers in fantasy settings, to cozy cabins, it's all just peak aesthetic to me. One area that really encapsulates this, is Irithyll of the Boreal Valley from Dark Souls 3.

Getting to the Valley

Screenshot of the Boreal Valley area from Dark Souls 3. It shows a bonfire in the foreground, with a long bridge going to a city. It's nightime, with a big full moon and snow coming down

So, I had played through all the Dark Souls games with a friend a few years ago. When I came up with this idea, I thought "I'll just load up one of my old saves, go back to the area, and show folks around". I then learned that Dark Souls 3 game files do not seemingly sync with Steam... meaning I had no saved data. I was almost ready to call it there, but instead decided to see if I could get to the Boreal Valley, before this post was due. I also decided to stream the whole experience:

Honestly, it's been a lot of fun playing through Dark Souls 3 again. I also beat the first boss faster / better than I think I ever had before? I'm also decent at parrying now? Crazy times here.

Siofra River Elden Ring

Screenshot of the Siofra River Well area in Dark Souls 3. In this screenshot, we're looking at a very stary night time sky, with a sort of Partheon like structure

The other sort of area that came to mind for this post was the Sofia River area in Elden Ring, and in particular the Ancestor Spirit. The NPCs in this area are also like, Viking Ghosts which is also an aesthetic I love. I just think the whole thing is themed so well, and it's one of my favorite areas to be in. The fight too with the Ancestor Spirit is just so pretty, and the music that accompanies it is just chefs kiss. You can see me going through the area below:

It was funny going back to Elden Ring right after Dark Souls 3. I may have just been over leveled for the area, however Elden Ring felt so much nicer to the player - in that area I had my estus recharged about 4 or 5 times. Also, with only about 18 endurance I believe, I could just swing my weapon continually whereas with 20 in Dark Souls 3 I felt like I could get maybe 3-4 swings in with my uchigatana before needing a break. The feeling inspired me to make this:

Original Video by Crazy Boris

Wrap Up

I wish I had more to say on this topic, but it truly is just a "this aesthetic slaps and I wanted you to see it". It's hard for me to put into words why I like the winter aesthetic, but I don't know - it's just so pretty to me.

About this blog post

This post is for the Grizzly Gazette Advent Calendar. There's a different post everyday for the month of December, written by different folks who are apart of the Bear Blog Carnival discord.

Where to find me:

The best place to find me is on my website. You can see other posts I've made, some tech tutorials, and a bunch of other stuff!

Thanks for reading,
- Moose