It’s been a while since last we took a trip to the land of Westeros, but luckily the wait’s nearly over. HBO’s finally revealed an official launch date for the fifth season of Game of Thrones, not long after announcing a special IMAX screening of two episodes from season four (with an IMAX-exclusive season five trailer attached).

HBO, during its recent TCA presentation, also revealed that it will be premiering the new seasons of Silicon Valley and Veep on the same night that Thrones returns to the airwaves. The network also took that time to confirm other expected developments (like its decision to renew Real Time with Bill Mahr on through to 2017).

Game of Thrones, as well as Silicon Valley and Veep, will all debut their new seasons on the evening of April 12th. This puts that weekend in an interesting place as it’s already been confirmed that Marvel plans on releasing the first season of Daredevil on Netflix two day earlier, which means we’re possibly looking at a weekend that will see Netflix vs HBO in the most interesting of ways. However, considering HBO recently revealed it would no longer be tracking any ratings beyond live +7 figures, it’s possible the competition posed by Netflix doesn’t worry them all too much.

Regarding HBO specifically, among the announcement is still a clear absence of concrete release plans for the second season of hit anthology drama, True Detective. By this time last year, we were well into the planned debut of the first season; however that hasn’t been the case with the second that’s only just now started filming. However, odds are good, given timing, that we’ll see the new season of the series sometime in the summer (with The Leftovers season two).

Game of Thrones season 5 premiere date

As for Game of Thrones, there’s still no word from HBO on what will happen if the TV show catches up with George R.R. Martin’s source books, seeing as Martin's final two A Song of Ice and Fire novels have yet to be published. Whether or not the network hopes to take the series into its own, original direction should they hit that point is anyone’s guess – though, the showrunners have been let in on Martin’s plans in case such an event takes place.

Regardless, as long as the series remains a money maker, the network behind it will likely do everything it can to keep the world of Westeros on the air.

Game of Thrones premieres April 12th, 2015 at 9 p.m. on HBO.

Source: TCA