'House of the Dragon' Season 2 Trailer Revealed

The Dance of Dragons is underway at HBO. The first official trailer for House of the Dragon Season 2, the network's Game of Thrones prequel series, was released over the weekend, teasing a "bloody" war between House Targaryen and House Hightower in Westeros. Warning: This post contains spoilers for House of the Dragon Season 1.

"There is no war so hateful to the gods as a war between kin – and no war so bloody as a war between dragons," Princess Rhaenys Targaryen warns in the tense, action-packed trailer, which dropped Saturday during a panel at CCXP in Sao Paolo. Set to pick up following the events of Season 1, in which Aemond Targaryen's dragon Vhagar killed Lucerys "Luke" Velaryon and his dragon Arrax, Season 2 is set to depict the civil war between factions within House Targaryen over who is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne, with Alicent Hightower saying in the trailer, "The war will be fought, many will die, and the victor will eventually ascend the throne."

"Season 1 was setting the table for a very bloody feast to come," series co-creator Ryan Condal previously told Entertainment Weekly. "The reason that I wanted to really spend our time doing this is because I wanted everybody to understand who all of these characters were and the long history they had behind them – behind their fathers and their grandfathers – that led us to this point where they end up fighting a civil war against each other."

House of the Dragon Season 2 stars Matt Smith, Olivia Cooke, Emma D'Arcy, Eve Best, Steve Toussaint, Fabien Frankel, Ewan Mitchell, Tom Glynn-Carney, Sonoya Mizuno, and Rhys Ifans. Additional returning cast includes Harry Collett, Bethany Antonia, Phoebe Campbell, Phia Saban, Jefferson Hall, and Matthew Needham. Joining the returning cast will be several new faces, with Tom Taylor starring as Lord Cregan Stark, Clinton Liberty as Addam of Hull, Jamie Kenna as Ser Alfred Broome, Kieran Bew as Hugh, Tom Bennett as Ulf, and Vincent Regan as Ser Rickard Thorne.

The series, based on George R.R. Martin's Fire and Blood, debuted on HBO in August 2022 and became an instant hit, even earning HBO's biggest series premiere ever, with 9.99 million viewers across HBO and HBO Max (now Max). The series was renewed for a second season before the second episode aired. The eight-episode second season is set to debut in "early summer 2024" and will air both on HBO and Max.