When Is ‘Game Of Thrones’ Coming Back? Why Season 8 Has Been Delayed

“Game of Thrones” fans will officially be waiting through their own actual winters to see what the show’s winter will bring to Westeros. After initial hopes the final six episodes of the hit HBO series would debut in early 2019, a new report indicates that it will now be an even longer wait for the series to come back.

According to the Huffington Post, the earliest the series will return to TV screens will be June 2019, after an interview with the show’s visual effects supervisor, Joe Bauer. In his discussion with the website, Bauer discussed the show’s Emmy hopes and future eligibility, spilling that the final season wouldn’t be up for honors at the annual awards until the 2020 ceremony.

“In two years we’ll be eligible for the Season 8 work,” he said. “Which we’re just beginning now.”

“We’re going to be toiling away on Season 8 until May of 2019, so it’s eight or nine months away. But the prequel is starting to shoot in February, at least the pilot. So we’ll still have quite a lot to do on Season 8 when they’re beginning.”

Huffington Post notes that in order for a show to be eligible for Emmy nominations in a year, it must air between June 1 of the prior year and May 31 of that year’s awards show. In order to qualify for the 2019 Emmys (the show garnered an impressive 22 nominations at the 2018 awards), the series would have to be finished airing by May 31, 2019. Based on Bauer’s comments, however, it appears the series would actually be a contender for the 2020 Emmys instead of the 2019—meaning it would not be on TV by May of next year.

If Bauer’s comments are taken as the sole truth about the show’s return date, it would mean that comments by HBO’s president of programming, Casey Bloys, may have jumped the gun when he revealed during the Television Critics Association press tour that the series was coming back in the “earlier half of the year.”

Bloys’ comments had echoed earlier ones by Maisie Williams, who portrays Arya Stark on the show when she said the show was coming back in April. However, with Bauer’s new information, it could mean that the show won’t actually be returning to its roots with its final premiere. If airing during the first half of the year is still the goal, then it would seem the show would be back sometime in June 2019.

As for when exactly it will be back, fans will have to keep waiting on the edge of their seats to find out.