It’s not the most surprising news of the day, but at least it’s definite now: Game Of Thrones is taking a year off. The final season of the show won’t now be debuting until 2019, HBO has finally confirmed.

Furthermore, it will be a six episode run to round the show off, and the identity of the final batch of Game Of Thrones writers and directors has been fully confirmed too.

The directors first, although these had already been announced. David Benioff and D B Weiss, the showrunners, are on the list, as are David Nutter and Miguel Sapochnik.

Furthermore, the writers have been confirmed too, with Benioff, Weiss, Bryan Cogman and Dave Hill working on the scripts. All of these people have been involved with the show for a while, so there’s no massive surprise in that lot.

A start date for Game Of Thrones season 8 hasn’t yet been announced, but we’ll let you know when it is.