Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss have confirmed that the series will come to an end after season eight.
Spoiler alert for those who are not yet up-to-date on the series.
As season six came to a close with possibly the best episode of the series to date, The Winds of Winter (read our review here), having it confirmed that the show's days are numbered is not what fans will want to hear.
It was rumoured that the following two seasons would be the last and that they might be shorter than the 10-episode seasons we've become accustomed to, and now we have confirmation.
"It's two more seasons we're talking about," Benioff told Deadline.com. "From pretty close to the beginning we talked about doing this is 70-75 hours, and that's what we'll end up with. Call it 73 for now."
As we've already had 60 episodes, that means there is probably only 13 - but hopefully 15 - left to go between seasons seven and eight. Which way this will skew is not yet known.
Weiss added that part of their decision to end it sooner rather than later is that they don't want the show to ever become stale.
"We want to leave while all the people watching this show are really into it. Get out at a high point and not have it be, well thank God that's over," he said.
Check out our 10 highlights from Game of Thrones season 6
Benioff echoed his sentiments saying, "We've known the end for quite some time and we're hurtling towards it. Those last images from the show that aired last night showed that. Daenerys is finally coming back to Westeros, Jon Snow is king of the North and Cersei is sitting on the Iron Throne. And we know the Night King is up there, waiting for all of them.
"The pieces are on the board now. Some pieces have been removed from the board and we are heading toward the end game."
While the world in which Game of Thrones is set is so expansive and there is an opportunity to explore countless avenues, it was never their aim to veer too much away from their planned end game and the story they specifically wanted to tell.
"The thing that has excited us from the beginning, back to the way we pitched it to HBO is, it's not supposed to be an ongoing show, where every season it's trying to figure out new storylines," Benioff said. "We wanted it to be one giant story, without padding it out to add an extra 10 hours, or because people are still watching it.
"We wanted something where, if people watched it end to end, it would make sense as one continuous story. We're definitely heading into the end game now."
Game of Thrones returns in 2017.
