Following a strange, but effective stunt on Facebook this afternoon, we now know that the seventh season of Game of Thrones will premiere on HBO on July 16th. It’s longer than we’ve had to wait between any previous two seasons of the show, but showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss said last year that they would wait for winter before starting production, which will dominate the world of the show this year.
The reveal was something of a surprise for Game of Thrones fans on Thursday. Following the unveiling of the season’s first official poster on Wednesday night, the Game of Thrones Facebook page shared a message on Thursday telling everyone to tune in at 2 p.m. ET to help reveal the premiere date of season 7.
When 2 p.m. rolled around, a live video appeared focusing on a giant block of ice in the middle of an otherwise empty room. By typing “FIRE” and “DRACARYS” in the comments section of the video, viewers were able to command flames to shoot at the block of ice, slowly melting it to uncover the date within.
The video died a few times before the event was over, but it was a clever, on-brand way to let everyone know when they would be able to see the next chapter of HBO’s biggest hit. Sadly, we still have a few months to go before that happens, but at least we can all stop speculating about when Game of Thrones will be back. Instead, we’ll just rock back and forth until HBO shares a trailer.
UPDATE: Alright, there’s no actual footage, but we did technically get a trailer to go along with the date:
