HBO's High-Fantasy Masterpiece Series Officially Returns In 2027

HBO’s best high fantasy series since Game of Thrones is already confirmed to come back in 2027, and it could lay a fantastic path for other genre shows to follow. While it is known that Game of Thrones‘ final season was not quite on the same level as the rest of the series, with rushed events and controversial choices, the show defined a generation.

At its peak, Game of Thrones was perhaps the absolute best show on TV, and that is some hefty praise, given how the medium has only evolved over the years. After Game of Thrones season 8 aired in 2019, HBO’s slate of projects needed another high fantasy series to fill its place, and so HBO went for its first Game of Thrones spinoff.

However, that did not work, as the unaired pilot Bloodmoon, which starred Naomi Watts and was set thousands of years before Game of Thrones, did not end up moving to series. As such, HBO’s first Game of Thrones spinoff was the excellent House of the Dragon, which debuted in 2022, and was very close in tone to the original fantasy series.

Over the years, public opinion on House of the Dragon has kept shifting, with season 3 currently at a 65% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, which is lower than season 2’s 71% and season 1’s 82%. Perhaps it is due to the way certain events changed from George R. R. Martin’s Fire & Blood book, or how the show does not offer a starkly different take on Westeros compared to Game of Thrones. Thankfully, another HBO fantasy series does.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms Is A Flawless Prequel

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was the second Game of Thrones spinoff series to make it to TVs around the world. The prequel became a global smash hit for HBO and on HBO Max, leading streaming charts in several countries. The most exciting part about A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is how it retains the cunning characters, intense political moves, and violent combat from both Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon, while filtering it all through the eyes of a hedge knight. Played by Peter Claffey, Dunk is a charismatic and kind-hearted protagonist to follow.

His dynamic with Dexter Sol Ansell’s Egg, aka Aegon V Targaryen, is hilarious and endearing. The young character is full of energy and is always cracking jokes, many at Dunk’s expense. A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms shows that the world of Westeros can be just as exciting with a healthy dose of levity to it, something that distances it quite a bit to how House of the Dragon tried to follow Game of Thrones. Those two fantasy series are much more tied together, down to the spinoff using the original’s opening theme, while A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms directly plays with it.

From story to costumes to setting to VFX to the fight sequences to the actors’ performances and everything else, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms was firing on all cylinders. That is why the second Game of Thrones spinoff series boasts a near-perfect 94% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes based on 180 reviews, the best for any season of a spinoff of the fantasy hit thus far.

Game Of Thrones Needs More Shows Like A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

A man and young child celebrating in A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

With all those positive aspects, it is exciting that A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms season 2 will be released in 2027, introducing an annual release schedule for new seasons of the Game of Thrones spinoff, which differs from House of the Dragon‘s two-year gap. Talking to The Hollywood Reporter in July, showrunner Ira Parker confirmed as much, saying, “Yeah, absolutely.” Now, with the show’s future set, and House of the Dragon season 4 set to be the final chapter for the high fantasy series, what the Game of Thrones franchise needs next is another spinoff like A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

What I mean is in the sense that the fantasy franchise should explore more contained stories where characters have the time to breathe and fans fall in love with them, rather than the epic scale of Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon. Whichever show comes next does not even need to be as light-hearted in general as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, just as character-focused, to add variety to the franchise.

While the stories focused on Dunk and Egg are pretty unique in that regard, perhaps shows like a Flea Bottom crime thriller, a Kingsguard procedural, or just something along those lines that takes an intriguing group or location from Westeros lore and expands on it might be just as exciting and fresh to watch as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.