In Dark Souls 2 there is a 'Shrine of Winter' near Sinners Rise. When you approach the shrine it will not let you open the door and a message pops up that says

Seek Mightier Souls

What does this mean and how do you open this shrine?

3

6 Answers

The 4 greater bosses you have to beat to enter the Shrine of Winter are the following:

1

Name:

Lost Sinner

Location:

Sinner's Rise, accessible from the Lost Bastille

2

Name:

Old Iron King

Location:

The Iron Keep, accessible from the Earthen Peak, which connects to Huntsman's Copse

3

Name:

Duke's Dear Freja

Location:

Brightstone Cove Tseldora, accessible from the Doors of Pharros which connects to the Shaded Woods

4

Name:

The Rotten

Location:

The Black Gulch, accessible from The Gutter at the bottom of the hole in Majula

(Is this formatting bad? I wanted both the names and locations to be independently spoiler tagged so people have the option to peek at the location without seeing the name of each boss.)

0

you also open it if your soul memory is 1m or above regardless of great souls

1

Well I beat 3 main bosses I think (does the giant dude count? if so 4 I guess). Basically I beat 3 bosses and lit the fires in 3 primal bonfires

Lost sinner, iron king and then the dukes giant spider. In that order, if that matters

I checked the map in majula mansion and there are 4 fires on it now. Nobody's telling me anything new or where to go next so I decided to look around, plus I just took out headless dude, so wanted to let the head know what's up so it was kinda natural to go back to that area. After that I just checked if the other paths have opened up. The big door with no enemies along the way, is still closed and just asks for the symbol of the king. BUT! the shrine of winter opens up

When I go down the path level-up lady is waiting at the bottom of the stairs to drangleic castle and says I'm not powerful enough yet, but that she won't stop me from trying - I tried but its a lot of work for now (PS. did get in the castle just the room near the bonfire is pretty tough with the SPOILERS)

I figure the next major boss is prolly in the only path I haven't really explored yet ie. the pit - although I've lit 5 different bonfires down there already.

The warp screen tells me I should go there before doing more of drangleic castle - but I kind of want to try to beat it (I say beat it, but for all I know there's not even a boss in there because

the king is not in the building... supposedly... although pretty sure mirror knight is in this area

Whilst the level-up lady says I can't just to see if I get something different as I said before though, kind of a hassle but still.

1

you have to beat the 4 old ones and light the four primal bon fires. this is the way to the castle

The accepted answer is not exactly right, and far from being complete.

1. You have two options, either find 4 Mighty boss souls OR earn 1 million soul memory (+1 million for each play-through, if you are in ng+ or bigger).

2. The quickest way is to get those 4 boss souls, to do it you need to kill 4 bosses: Lost Sinner, The Rotten, Old Iron King and Duke's Dear Freja. But this is not enough. You will get 3 mighty souls automatically after first 3 bosses are ded, but, the 4th one you need to pick from ground. Don't miss it! It will appear after killing Duke's Dear Freja on the boss arena, under the dead dragon.

Note, that at ng+ and further souls and boss soul memory acquired on your previous playthroughs won't be taking into account by the Shrine gates.

Source:

you have to go to shrouded ruins where you defeat the scorpion woman; there is a door near the back to the right where you go to doors of pharos which will take you to brightstone cave where you defeat dukes freja ( which is a massive spider with 2 heads which is easily soloable ) where you light the last primal bone fire... be prepared to fight a duel wielding fast opponent when you go down the stairs to the left in the dukes private chamber