‘House of the Dragon’ to End With Season 4 at HBO

House of the Dragon will end after four seasons. During a press conference Monday following the House of the Dragon Season 2 finale Sunday night, showrunner and co-creator Ryan Condal confirmed that the Game of Thrones prequel series will run for two more seasons on HBO and Max, with Season 3 set to begin production early next year, according to Variety.

The news aligns with author George R.R. Martin’s outlook on the series. Martin, who also serves as a co-creator on the show, previously said he anticipated House of the Dragon would run for four seasons, writing on his personal blog that “it is going to take four full seasons of 10 episodes each to do justice to the Dance of the Dragons, from start to finish.”

HBO has not officially renewed House of the Dragon for Season 4. The popular fantasy series was greenlit for a third season, which is currently being written and set to begin production in “earlyish 2025,” according to Condal, in June ahead of the Season 2 premiere. Asked if the two remaining seasons would also consist of eight episodes, just like Season 2, Condal said, “I haven’t had discussions with HBO about it. I would just anticipate the cadence of the show, from a dramatic storytelling perspective, will continue to be the same from Season 2 on.”

Set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon is based on the events in Martin’s Fire & Blood and focuses on the so-called “Dance of the Dragons,” the civil war that broke out between factions within House Targaryen. The series stars an ensemble cast that includes Matt Smith, Emma D’Arcy, Olivia Cooke, Rhys Ifans, Steve Toussaint, Eve Best, Fabien Frankel and Matthew Needham.

Season 2 ended at a tipping point (warning: spoilers ahead), with Team Black and Team Green preparing to march to war, much to the frustration of many viewers and critics. Addressing the decision to push the Greens’ attempt to break Corlys’ blockade, known as the Battle of the Gullet, to Season 3, Condal said they are “trying to give the Gullet, which is arguably the most anticipated – well, I would say maybe the second-most-anticipated – action event of Fire & Blood, trying to give it the time and the space that it deserves… we’re building to that event. That event will happen very shortly in terms of the storytelling of House of the Dragon.”

While House of the Dragon is now at the halfway point of its planned four-season run, Martin’s Game of Thrones universe is far from over. Several spinoffs are currently in the works, including a series set 300 years before GoT and focused on Aegon “The Conqueror” Targaryen. The series will reportedly chronicle the establishment of the Targaryen Dynasty. A second spinoff,The Hedge Knight, will be set less than 100 years before GoT and chronicle the legend of “Dunk and Egg.” HBO released a brief tease of the series in a sizzle reel ahead of the House of the Dragon Season 2 finale Sunday night.