New Game of Thrones Series Sparks Fresh Doubts: Will Winds of Winter Ever Arrive?
Westeros is still expanding: at Iceland Noir Festival, George R.R. Martin revealed that beyond The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and House of the Dragon, more Game of Thrones spinoffs are now in development.
George R.R. Martin popped up at the Iceland Noir Festival and did the thing he does best: he teased more Westeros on TV. If you love the shows, great. If you are still waiting on The Winds of Winter, you probably just sighed so hard your neighbors heard it.
What Martin actually said
Aside from The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms and House of the Dragon, there are other Game of Thrones spinoff projects in development. Most are prequels. There are several in development, five or six series; and I do not develop them alone, I am working with other people. Yes, there are some sequels.
That was Martin at the festival, relayed via Los Siete Reinos. Translation: HBO and Martin still have multiple Westeros shows on the burner, most set before Game of Thrones, with at least a few set after. And he is not steering all of them by himself.
What is moving forward (so far)
Fans have already heard about Aegon’s Conquest in development and that a second season of A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is moving ahead. Other long-discussed titles are still in the mix too: Nine Voyages, Ten Thousand Ships, and The Golden Empire — all pieces of Martin’s larger medieval fantasy lore he has been mapping for years.
The fan reaction (yes, it got loud)
The internet did what it does. Instead of cheering the spinoff update, a whole lot of people zeroed in on what he did not say: anything concrete about The Winds of Winter. You can find posts as recent as November 21, 2025 flat-out accepting the idea that ASOIAF will never be finished. There are memes from September 27, 2023 joking about yet another delay, and jokes from October 18, 2025 about Martin allegedly focusing on a Game of Thrones Slots Casino update instead of the book. One November 21, 2025 post (in Korean and English) basically boils down to: winter already came on TV, HBO keeps announcing new series, and the book still is not done. Another from the same day: The Winds of Winter is never coming out, with a couple of laughing emojis for good measure.
Is Winds still a priority for Martin?
Short answer: only he knows. The last notably positive status update landed back in 2022, when Martin shared how many pages he had written. Three years later, in 2025, reporting suggested he was still around that same progress point. In the meantime, his calendar is packed with other commitments — convention appearances, hands-on work with TV productions, and editing gigs — which makes it easy to believe the novel keeps getting pushed down the stack.
He did tell fans at New York Comic Con that he is still invested in finishing The Winds of Winter, but he is not putting the rest of his projects on ice either because, in his words, he loves them all equally. Understandably, most fans do not love them all equally — not when one of those projects is the long-delayed next book.
Quick timeline refresher
- A Game of Thrones (1996)
- A Clash of Kings (1998)
- A Storm of Swords (2000)
- A Feast for Crows (2005)
- A Dance with Dragons (2011)
- The Winds of Winter (TBA)
- A Dream of Spring (TBA)
Where this leaves us
On TV, Westeros is not going anywhere. Between House of the Dragon, The Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and the five-or-six-more Martin says are in development (mostly prequels, with some sequels), HBO clearly plans to keep that world spinning. On the book side, nothing new to cling to beyond that 2022 page-count update and Martin’s assertion he still cares about finishing it. If you are excited for more shows, you are eating. If you are waiting on The Winds of Winter, you are still waiting. How are you feeling about those priorities right now?