Game of Thrones Season 8 to Premiere in April

HBO’s hit Emmy-winning drama Game of Thrones will debut its eighth and final season starting in April, the network announced in a trailer released online on Tuesday.

The video featured footage from previous seasons to recap the costly battles that preceded the coming showdown for control of the fictional kingdom of Westeros. The network did not reveal a specific date for the final season’s premiere.

Though no specific date in April is offered in the video, it nevertheless gives fans their first indication of when they can expect the highly-anticipated eighth and final season of the show that has become a global phenomenon. It will also no doubt come as a welcome surprise to the show’s loyal viewers, who will recall they had to wait until July last year when Season 7 premiered. Seasons 1-6 of the series all bowed in April or late March.

Game of Thrones, which has won multiple Emmy awards, is HBO’s biggest hit ever with some 30 million viewers in the United States and an army of devoted fans worldwide.

Several spinoffs of the series are in the works. HBO, owned by AT&T Inc, said in June that it had given a pilot order to a prequel that will take place thousands of years before the events of the current series.

Goldman’s show takes place thousands of years before the events of “Game of Thrones” and 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’ 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.