Imagine that boss of this area is Malenia. I bet no one would ever finish her. Just worst ever created souls area.

Whatever some people think about Dark Souls games having to be played fully solo - Frigid Outskirts, Iron Passage, Cave of the Dead and Memory of the Old Iron King were clearly designed to be played in coop, and I encourage everyone to play them that way. There's a reason why players from outside of the DLC gates can be summoned here, why enemies often gank you in large numbers, and why the game gives you 2-3 phantoms every time so even if you can't summon players, you can still complete the areas without going hollow irl. For the Iron Passage, the devs were even foresightful enough to only place non-unique loot into the area, with the only unique item being behind the boss room so you're not missing out on anything even if you're playing with braindead NPCs that don't understand strategy.

You can still send the NPCs home before entering the boss room if you feel like doing them solo, but at least use them to get through the area.

POV you're going to collect your mail in canada

Just beat it first try bruh

It is not worth it, just skip this

Not really a hard area if you take it slow, and make sure to heal your npc helpers between buildings/don't rush out. (REAL horseshit area was the smelter demon run up, i wish the person who designed that to rot in the fiery pits of hell)
Beat lud/zud 2nd try, almost did it first try but got grabbed by rage mode zud and ran outta estus.

Manhunter O'harrah is probably the most OP Summon here, vengarl makes a nice meatshield, and when she WANTS to; Abess can heal the entire group.

Got invaded yesterday by an arbiter spirit while farming reindeers. The poor dude just walked through a vast desert only to get demolished by the moonlight greatsword.

The easiest way to get through this area is to summon the npc phantoms to assist you. Both this area and Iron Passage seem to be designed around co-op.

I genuinely hope whoever designed this area was fired and never allowed to do game design again.

the reindeer are hell but they're a little easier to deal with if you play this area with headphones and/or no background audio - you can hear them coming up behind you and it gives you a chance to avoid their first charge. its the only real cue you get but if you can catch them early you should be able to avoid getting staggered and fight them on more even footing than you would otherwise.