HBO’sGame of Thronesprequel,House of the Dragon, wrapped up its second season earlier this month. The series isn’t expected to return with its third — and apparently penultimate — season until 2026, meaning that viewers may have another two whole years to wait before they finally get to seeHouse of the Dragonstart delivering on some of the major moments that it has spent its first 18 episodes setting up. That doesn’t, however, mean thatGame of Thronesfans will have to wait two years to return to the franchise’s fictional fantasy world.
On the contrary, HBO has a number of otherThronesspinoffs in development in addition toHouse of the Dragonseason 3, including one that is filming right now. It may not, in other words, be long before viewers get to start making a lot more frequent return trips to Westeros, as well as the seas and lands that surround it.
A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (2025)
To date,HBOhas only begun filming one of its other, long-in-developmentGame of Thronesspinoffs. The series in question isA Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which is set around 80 years after the events ofHouse of the Dragonand around 90 years beforeGame of Thronesbegins. Based onThronesauthor George R.R. Martin’sTales of Dunk and Eggnovellas, the show will follow “Dunk,” aka Ser Duncan the Tall (Peter Claffey), a hedge knight (i.e., a wandering warrior not sworn to one master), as he journeys across the Seven Kingdoms in search of employment and recognition. Along the way, he joins up with a young squire, Egg (Dexter Sol Ansell), whose connection to Westeros’ Targaryen dynasty isn’t immediately clear to Dunk.
The series’ six-episode first season will be run byHouse of the Dragonwriter Ira Parker and directed byBlack Mirrorfilmmaker Owen Harris and Sarah Adina Smith. It’s expected to premiere on HBO in 2025 and promises to be a smaller production than bothHouse of the DragonandGame of Thrones. That should not only help it stand out from its franchise’s other installments, but also make it easier for the series to return with new seasons — should it be renewed — on a more regular basis thanHouse of the Dragon.
Aegon’s Conquest (TBA)
In February, it was reported byThe Hollywood Reporterthat HBO had begun “actively” developing a newGame of Thronesprequel series centered around Aegon the Conqueror’s conquest of Westeros. The legacy of that military campaign, which resulted in the union of six of Westeros’ eventual seven kingdoms, looms large over the events of bothGame of ThronesandHouse of the Dragon, the latter of which depicts the beginning of the end 0f the Targaryen dynasty that Aegon the Conqueror and his sister wives installed.
It’s said that HBO’s interest in the prequel increased once the network began to work on it withThe Batman Part IIco-writer Mattson Tomlin. HBO hasn’t publicly acknowledged the prequel series since this initial report was released, so it’s unclear whether or not it’s even happening. Ever since it was announced that HBO was interested in producingGame of Thronesspinoffs, though, Aegon’s Conquest is a story that fans have frequently named as one of the most obvious subjects of a potential show.
It isn’t, therefore, surprising that an Aegon’s Conquest prequel is in development. Whether it’ll ever actually come to fruition is another matter altogether and remains to be seen.
Nine Voyages/Sea Snake (TBA)
HBO has beenreportedlydeveloping aHouse of the Dragonprequel titledNine Voyagesfor several years now. The project is said to depict the nine naval voyages taken by Corlys Velaryon (Steve Toussaint) that helped elevate him to a powerful status within theGame of Thronesfranchise’s fictional world in the decades leading up to the start ofHouse of the Dragon. It’s these nine voyages that also earned Corlys the same moniker as his legendary ship,Sea Snake. Corlys’ adventures have been hinted at and alluded to throughoutHouse of the Dragon‘s first two seasons, but viewers have so far seen very little of his naval prowess.Nine Voyageswould potentially rectify that.
George R.R. Martinannouncedlast year thatNine Voyageshad transformed in its ongoing development due to production limitations from a live-action prequel to an animated series. “Budgetary constraints would likely have made a live-action version prohibitively expensive, what with half the show taking place at sea, and the necessity of creating a different port every week,” Martin wrote. “There’s a whole world out there. And we have a lot better chance of showing it all with animation.” It has beenreportedthat a pilot script was written for the series byThe Mentalistcreator Bruno Heller, but it’s unclear whether HBO has chosen to move forward with that version ofNine Voyagesor not.
The same is true of the series itself, which remains in the same ambiguous developmental state as many of HBO’s otherThronesprequels and spinoffs. The fact that it has managed to consistently stick around over the past few years, however, suggests that it may ultimately have a better shot of premiering one day than others.
Ten Thousand Ships (TBA)
Ten Thousand Shipsis aGame of Thronesprequel that has been in development at HBO since as far back as 2017. Set nearly 1,000 years before the events ofThrones, the project explores the origins of Dorne and, specifically, the journey that the legendary warrior-queen Princess Nymeria of Ny Sar led when she and her people were forced out of their homeland by the Valyrians. It’s said that Nymeria assembled a fleet of 10,000 ships to carry her people across the sea in search of a new home, which would eventually become the region of Dorne.
A pilot forTen Thousand Shipswas originally written byL.A. ConfidentialandMan on Firewriter Brian Helgeland, who toldInversein April that the project hadn’t been “picked up yet” by HBO. Following Helgeland’s contribution, it was reported that screenwriter Amanda Segel had been hired to write a new pilot script for the project, and George R.R. Martinrevealedin March 2022 that Segel had delivered “a couple drafts of that one, and we are forging ahead.” It’s unclear what came of Segel’s vision forTen Thousand Ships, though, as Martin alsoclaimedin June of this year that playwright Eboni Booth was “working on a new pilot” for the project that he and HBO were “very excited about.”
LikeNine Voyages,Ten Thousand Shipshas seemingly survived a few different permutations without being permanently shelved. That seems like a strong indication of HBO’s level of interest in it, but given the epic scale of its story, it would also represent some major logistical challenges. Only time will tell whether or not it actually has a future on the small screen.
The Golden Empire (TBA)
In 2021,The Hollywood Reporterrevealed that HBO had begun developing three animated projects set within the world ofGame of Thrones. It was noted that one of them was rumored to be about the Golden Empire of Yi Ti, which is essentially theGame of Thronesworld’s version of Imperial China. It wasn’t featured inThrones, nor has it been visited yet inHouse of the Dragonor Martin’s mainSong of Ice and Firebooks. Nonetheless, in 2022, Martinconfirmedthat a Yi Ti-set animated project was in active development and that the working title for it wasThe Golden Empire.
Since then, very little has been revealed about the project, including whether it’s still in contention for a future spotin HBO or Max’s originals lineups. In late 2023, Martin notably revealed that two of the four animatedThronesspinoffs that had been originally pitched to HBO had since been shelved, but he hasn’t yet announced whetherThe Golden Empirewas one of them.
Snow (Canceled)
Much to everyone’s surprise, it wasreportedin 2022 thatKit Haringtonand HBO had begun developing aGame of Thronessequel series about the future adventures of Harington’sThronescharacter, Jon Snow. Reportedly titledSnow, the project remains the onlyThronesspinoff HBO has developed that would be set after the events of that monumental TV series. That fact alone, along with Harington’s reported involvement, immediately madeSnowone of the most interestingThrones-related projects that HBO has considered to date. Unfortunately,Snowhas been indefinitely shelved.
Harington confirmed as much earlier this year and recently opened up about the project’s apparent demise in an interview withGQ. “We spent a couple of years back-and-forth developing it. And it just didn’t … nothing got us excited enough,” Harington revealed. “In the end, I kind of backed out and said, ‘I think if we push this any further and keep developing it, we could end up with something that’s not good. And that’s the last thing we all want.’”
Taking all of this into account, the chances ofSnowever making it past a developmental phase seem slim, but stranger things have happened. For now, though, viewers definitely shouldn’t expect to see it on their television screens anytime soon.
Game of Thronesseasons 1-8 and House of the Dragon seasons 1-2 are streaming now on Max.
