Game of Thrones coming back in summer 2017 for seven-episode season

HBO’s fantasy behemoth will be getting a truncated seventh season; shooting is set to begin in Northern Ireland later this summer

Nigel M Smith
Monday 18 July 2016 18.13 BST

Games of Thrones fans will have to wait longer than previously for a new batch of episodes. HBO usually premieres each season of the fantasy phenomenon in the spring (typically April) of every year. Season seven, however, won’t debut until next summer.

Another blow to viewers: for the first time in the show’s history, the new season will consist of only seven episodes, down from the usual 10.

The delay in between seasons doesn’t come as a huge surprise: Game of Thrones executive producers David Benioff and DB Weiss prompted speculation that the show’s return date might be pushed back after revealing on the UFC Unfiltered podcast that production was getting a later start this year to film in wintry locations. Season seven will be shot largely in Northern Ireland, with additional portions to be filmed in Spain and Iceland.

As Entertainment Weekly notes, the show’s producers had always planned to keep the seventh season shorter than the rest, in order to cap the series off at 73 hours, with an eighth-and-final season that will reportedly run at six episodes.