Game of Thrones Final Season Will Be Released Sooner Than You Think

The much-anticipated return of Game of Thrones will happen sooner than you think, according to HBO programming president Casey Bloys.

Speaking at the Television Critics Association on Wednesday, Bloys revealed the show’s final season, which is set to run for six episodes, will hit in the first half of 2019. While we don’t have an exact date, it’s nice to know that the timeframe is narrowing.

Even still, Game of Thrones fans have had to wait an unusually long time to see how the show concludes. The previous season ran from July 2017 to August 2017, so it’s almost been a year since the show was off the air. Although we’re so close to seeing how the Great War ends, we have at least six or seven more months of waiting.

Bloys also revealed HBO is only moving forward with one Game of Thrones spinoff at the moment, which will focus on “The Long Night.” Here’s a synopsis for the upcoming spinoff:

Taking place thousands of years before the events of Game of Thrones, the series chronicles the world’s descent from the Golden Age of Heroes into its darkest hour. And only one thing is for sure: from the horrifying secrets of Westeros’s history to the true origin of the white walkers, the mysteries of the East to the Starks of legend… it’s not the story we think we know.

“We’re just starting the search for director (and) casting director,” Bloys said.

Production for the upcoming spinoff is expected to begin early next year. Unfortunately, Bloys didn’t say when the network expects the spinoff to hit the airwaves, which means fans of the franchise will have even more waiting to do.

Once we have a concrete release date for either show we’ll pass it along.