‘Game Of Thrones’ Season 8 Spoilers: Who Survives To S8, Projected Release Date

Game of Thrones Season 7 has not even premiered yet, and anticipation is already ramping up for Season 8. Below you will find everything known so far, from the projected release date to which characters are pretty much confirmed to make it to Game of Thrones Season 8.

How many episodes will Game of Thrones Season 8 consist of?

Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss teased Season 8 at the SXSW festival. Among the revelations they shared about the final season was the episode count.

Entertainment Weekly reports that Benioff and Weiss confirmed only six episodes would comprise Game of Thrones Season 8, also known as the smash hit’s final season. That is one more episode than half of Game of Thrones first six seasons. In comparison, it is only one episode less than Game of Thrones Season 7, which will have seven total episodes.

When will Season 8 begin filming?

In the same interview actor Liam Cunningham (Ser Davos Seaworth) hinted at Season 7’s release date, he also stated when filming for Season 8 would commence. Cunningham told the Independent, “…the [filming for the] final season starts again as far as I know in September.”

If Season 8’s current production schedule holds, filming will begin on the final season, just as Season 7 concludes its run on HBO. Game of Thrones Season 7 premieres on July 16, with seven episodes comprising the penultimate season.

Since that is the case, Game of Thrones Season 7 will last for seven weeks. That puts the air date for the Game of Thrones Season 7 finale as August 27, which means unlike the gap between the Season 6 finale and the beginning of production on Season 7, fans will not have to wait long after the Season 7 finale airs to start hearing news about filming on Season 8.

When will Game of Thrones Season 8 premiere?

Entertainment Weekly confirmed that production on Game of Thrones Season 7 had begun on September 1, 2016. From the sound of things, production on Game of Thrones Season 8 is likely to follow the same timeline as Season 7. If it continues to stay that course, it stands to reason that Season 8 will premiere around the same time as Season 7, which puts a projected Season 8 release date around July 2018.

Where will Season 8 film?

Rotten Tomatoes reports that during SXSW, Game of Thrones‘ showrunners confirmed Season 8 will film in Northern Ireland, Spain, Croatia, and Iceland. Those are all locales Game of Thrones filmed at for Season 7.

What do the filming locations for Season 8 hint at, exactly?

For one, a lot of the locations where action takes place in Season 7 will also be used in Season 8.

Warning: Spoilers for Game of Thrones Season 7 and 8 are below.

Season 8 filming in Iceland hints that the threat of the White Walkers will continue to play a significant role in the final season. In January, Winter is Coming reported that Game of Thrones was filming in Iceland for Season 7 scenes involving Jon Snow (Kit Harington), Ser Davos (Liam Cunningham), The Hound (Rory McCann), Tormund Giantsbane (Kristofer Hivju), and Gendry (Joe Dempsie) hunting for a wight north of the Wall.

As for the other locations, Northern Ireland is where Game of Thrones primarily films, while Spain and Croatia are typically the hubs for Daenerys and Lannister-related activities.

Which characters are confirmed to survive to Season 8?

Based on a slip of the tongue to Hey U Guys, Game of Thrones actress Sophie Turner seemed to confirm that her character, Sansa Stark, would make it to Season 8. Turner accidentally spilled the beans when she mentioned when she would begin filming the final season.

During Game of Thrones‘ SXSW panel, the showrunners answered that Tyrion Lannister would probably have the best line of Season 8, a comment that seemed to confirm that the fan favorite would survive to Season 8 since in order to have the best line of Season 8, one would presume that Tyrion will be alive to utter it.

Actor Kit Harington also seemed to confirm the unsurprising news of Jon Snow’s Season 8 survival to ABC News, stating,

“I’m going to feel so privileged to be one of the few people who is going to get to read the ending before anyone else sees it, a year before. I really am counting down the days till I get those scripts.”

Obviously, if Harington says he will read the ending of Game of Thrones a year before everyone sees it, it seems highly likely a living Jon Snow will play a role in it.

Will Season 8 revolve around all of Game of Thrones‘ major players uniting to fight the White Walkers?

In the teaser trailer for Season 7, Jon Snow forewarns the “great war” is the only war that matters, a reference to humanity’s war with the White Walkers. While spoilers are helpful, Game of Thrones fans will obviously learn more about that war and the context for Season 8, including everyone who survives the penultimate season, when Season 7 begins airing on its newly announced release date, July 16.

[Featured Image by Helen Sloan/HBO]