Westeros

NetMarble has announced the beginning of pre-registration for Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, they’re upcoming free-to-play mobile and PC action RPG set during the 4th season of Game of Thrones. Pre-registration begins today through to the game’s release, currently planned for the 2nd quarter of this year.

See below for the full details regarding pre-registration, and follow this link to pre-register today!

Netmarble has announced that their forthcoming Game of Thrones: Kingsroad is Coming to Steam Next Fest, with a demo that will be available to be downloaded and played on PC from February 24th at 8:00AM through to March 3rd (PST). The game is developed for iOS and Android as well, but no word whether similar demos will be available for those platforms.

They are encouraging users to visit the Steam page for the game and add it to their wishlist, with goal tiers for total wishlistings releasing special items and perks to those who play the demo:

Deadline has a detailed report concerning everything said in a recent interview by HBO’s Head of Drama Series & Films, Francesca Orsi, regarding the Game of Thrones franchise. Besides the usual update on House of the Dragon and its massive opening for season 3 (cameras start rolling in March, according to reports), Orsi reveals that HBO’s so bullish on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms that if they renew it they may well order two seasons to be filmed back-to-back.

Last month, we reported on the reveal of Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, an action RPG based on the TV series developed by South Korean publisher Netmarble. They have now released a short gameplay trailer, ahead of an upcoming closed beta test in the US, UK, and parts of the EU from January 16th to January 22nd. Interestingly, the trailer and the beta test both confirm that initial reports that the game was mobile-only, it will also support Windows computers.

For those interested in signing up for the closed beta, you can sign up at the official site for the game. Registration ends on January 12th.

During this year’s Game Awards, where many upcoming and often highly anticipated games announce themselves and reveal launch trailers, among the cinematics for the likes of The Witcher 4 or gameplay trailers for games likeElden Ring: Nightreign or The Outer Worlds 2, Warner Bros. and South Korean developer Netmarble unveiled a brand new trailer for Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, a mobile-only open world action RPG that starts during the fourth season of HBO’s award-winning Game of Thrones. Although it had officially unveiled at South Korea’s G-Star trade exhibition last month, it seemed to make few waves outside of the Asian press, so for many fans this is the first time they’ve heard of it.

See the new trailer, which features appearances by numerous familiar characters like Jon Snow, Varys, and Jaime Lannister:

The previous trailer, and some additional thoughts based on what we’ve seen, below!

James Hibberd (with contributions from Kim Masters) has the scoop, sharing that multiple sources have told him that:

Hibberd’s article places this in context of recent history at HBO, including the facts that Benioff & Weiss had briefly considered a trilogy of films to wrap up the TV show, George R.R. Martin was interested in seeing his universe on the big screen, and the sense that the idea that a property could be only on TV or only in cinemas is increasingly considered outdated in this new era dominated by streaming.

The third and final day of the Heritage Auctions Game of Thrones prop and costume auction drew to a close, and did so with a bang (we’ve recapped Day 1 and Day 2 in previous posts). Mid-way through the auction of the last ~300 items, an auctioneer announced that it had now become the 2nd highest grossing Entertainment prop and costume auction in history, and was now chasing the legendary Debbie Reynold’s auction of 2011. While it did not meet that number, it came close with a total of $22,115,719 in sales including the buyers’ premiums.

And a big chunk of the $8.5 million raised on that final day came in the form of the touring Iron Throne which went for a whopping $1.49 million dollars. An absolutely stunning sum, by any measure, especially when you consider that HBO made more than one replica throne for exhibitions and tours… and that for a brief time you could order your own replica through the HBO Store for a cool $30,000. I strongly suspect we’ll be seeing another Iron Throne put to auction in the future, given this result.

Could this throne, displayed at Stockholm’s Royal Armoury back in 2014, be the same that sold at auction? A close inspection comparing it to Heritage’s photos certainly show no obvious diferences, but as we said, there were multiple of these and they may well all have been pretty exact replicas!

Day two of the Heritage Auctions Game of Thrones auction started off with a bang when the first new entry into the six-figure sale list was Jon’s Snow’s season 6 Night’s Watch ensemble with an included “action” Longclaw. Realized price? $337,500, becoming the most expensive piece sold to date.

A few other notable pieces hit the six-figure mark throughout the day. Oberyn Martell’s trial by combat ensemble was next to break the mark, followed by what to me was probably the most surprising result among the big sellers: the Lannister “family litter” used in season 5. It’s beautifully crafted, but I had no idea it’d draw that much attention. After that, the last item we saw to reach $100,000 before we went to bed was the “Shame” bell, which I recall David Mandel of the The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of podcast expected to do well.

And that wasn’t even half way through the six-figure sellers. When we checked the final results, lets just say our eyes went wide.

The first day of the three day Game of Thrones prop and costume auction run by Heritage Auctions started well, with nearly $5.36 million realized across the first 290-odd listings in the auction. We kept track of it as long as we could, and by the time we went to bed we’d noted that several items had cleared the $100,000 mark. Gregor Clegane’s tourney armor was the first to hit six figures and ended up just shy of $200,000, followed by a prototype dragon egg from the first season (a second egg just missed the mark).
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After that, Arya Stark’s season 2 “boy” ensemble with an included “action” version of Needle hit $150,000, which seemed like a very expected number. And then, fittingly, the first item to hit $200,000—just beating out the Mountain that Ride’s armor—was the Hound’s armor ensemble. After that point, we went to bed, but in the morning we found two more items made it to the prestigious six-figure club: a full Jaime Lannister Kinsguard ensemble. Because of the inclusion of both a prop hand and an “action” Oathkeeper, this one was an especially valuable listing, and the bidders recognized it as they drove it up to become the day’s top item with a final realized price of $212,500.

There are two distinct eras in the history of modern television: pre–Game of Thrones and post–Game of Thrones. Not only did Thrones reinvigorate fantasy as a mainstream television genre,
but the scope of its production resulted in an onscreen world that looked, sounded, and felt like a real place. Now, for the first time, the building blocks of that reality are available for public view and will shortly become
available for purchase by private collectors through Heritage Auctions’ HBO© Game of Thrones: The Auction.

At the September 16th press preview at Heritage Auctions’ New York location, Production coordinator Michelle Burns, Prop Master Chris Moore, and Wardrobe Mistress Donna Hughes were present to discuss their body of work before it’s scattered across private collections. All three were Thrones lifers, having been with the show from the unaired pilot to the series finale, a feat which fewer than 50 people can boast. Their work continued with the creation of the HBO Archive and the eventual curation of the auction collection.

“In 2018, HBO approached us to set up the HBO Archive and the first project was Game of Thrones,” said Moore. “We entered an 80,000 square foot warehouse with sealed crates floor to ceiling high, full of bodies, horses, carts, you name it. Armor. We’ve spent the past five years navigating our way through to the end, which you can see on the walls here.”

Those walls, festooned with house banners, shields, prop weapons, and more from all seasons of the show, set the visual history of Game of Thrones production on display in a way the public has never been able to access until now. In one section of hanging banners, Moore pointed out the difference between a House Lannister banner from Season 1, screen printed on a shiny red fabric with a thicker, plastic-looking fringe and a House Stark banner from Season 6, which had a thick tapestry texture, era-appropriate aging, and was visibly created with more authentic techniques.

Lannister and Stark banners from different seasons, created using different techniques.

Via The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of podcast (hosted by House of the Dragon‘s Ryan Condal and Veep‘s Dave Mandel), huge news as it seems WBD has decided to let go of a great part of their Game of Thrones prop and costume holdings. This is very unexpected, to say the least. Here’s Mandel with a reveal video:

Full details can be found at Heritage Auctions. There will be preview dates both in London and in Los Angeles.

An interesting blast from the past, courtesy of Paul Moore’s Inverse interview with acclaimed screenwriter Brian Helgeland. Way back in 2017, HBO hired writers to develop successor shows to Game of Thrones, and Helgeland was among those named. Helgeland would go on to refer to the project in development the year after, but details remained thin as to what exactly he worked on.

Well, they are thin no longer, as this quote from the interview shows:

Princess Nymeria as depicted by J.K. Drummond for The World of Ice and Fire, the “Westeros encyclopedia” referred to be Helgelnd.

HBO has just revealed that they have cast the two leads for A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, known to fans world wide as Dunk and Egg. Peter Claffey, an Irish rugby player-turned-ctor, will be Ser Duncan the Tall. Dexter Sol Ansell has in turn been cast as Dunk’s squire Egg; Ansell’s been acting since the age of 4, and most recently appeared as the young Coriolanus in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is set to begin filming in Northern Ireland, the old stomping grounds of Game of Thrones, in June with production likely to last several months.

Interesting news broke last night that HBO is gearing up to explore the extensive history of Westeros with a new spinoff series centered around Aegon’s Conquest. According to a report from James Hibberd and Borys Kit for The Hollywood Reporter, the network has enlisted much-in-demand writer Mattson Tomlin to develop the project.

Last year, we noted news out of Variety that HBO had starting looking into bringing Aegon’s Conquest to the small screen (and, perhaps, even the big screen—a theatrical lead-in was under discussion) and actively sought a writer to head the development of this thrilling prequel series. That search seems to have ended.

The burning of Harrenhal during Aegon’s Conquest, as depicted by artist Marc Simonetti for the 2023 World of Fire and Blood Calendar

Via the ever-watchful Redanian Intelligence, we learn that HBO’s A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight has been pushed from a Spring to Summer 2024 production start. We reported back in October on a suspicious casting call that certainly seemed to fit the bill for casting of Dunk and Egg, and the update from RA seems to certainly confirm this as the same casting director, Lucy Bevan, is listed in the update in Production Monthly:

It’s great to see that Northern Ireland will once again host filming of matter from the Game of Thrones universe, as there are many hundreds of talented Northern Irish actors, extras, production, and craftspeople who helped bring Game of Thrones to life who’ll surely do the same for this show. Northern Ireland also has a wealth of possible filming locations.

Ser Duncan the Tall and his diminutive squire, Egg, by Gary Gianni.