Finally – we know for sure when Game of Thrones will be back

Good news or bad news? The good news is we finally know when Game of Thrones will be back on our screens. The bad news is that it's not until the summer of 2017 and will only have seven episodes, in comparison with the ten we had the last series. Ten weren't nearly enough for the sixth season of the HBO drama but somehow we'll have to live with just seven weeks of Westeros when it returns in 2017. The change in time frame is to suit the production and shooting schedule which is due to take place in Northern Ireland, Spain and Iceland. According to Digital Spy, Casey Bloys, president of HBO programming, said:

"Now that winter has arrived on Game of Thrones, executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss felt that the storylines of the next season would be better served by starting production a little later than usual, when the weather is changing.

"Instead of the show's traditional spring debut, we're moving the debut to summer to accommodate the shooting schedule."

While we now know when the next season will be back, it's expected that the following season in 2018 will be the last.

The writers David Benioff and Dan Weiss have said:

"I'm sure on some level [HBO would] love to see the show carry on beyond the seasons that we've got planned, but they trust the people that they work with.

"So [if] we tell them that the story ends here and there is no real story beyond that endpoint, they stick with it."