'Game of Thrones' Season 7: HBO Release Date Delayed Over Westeros Weather

The latest Game of Thrones episode, the shockingly satisfying "Winds of Winter," finally revealed what we've been waiting for since we first met Ned Stark, and winter has arrived to Westeros. While this is great news when it comes to storytelling, there's a big downside to the change of weather: the release date for Season 7 will probably be pushed back.

According to The Huffington Post, the release of the white ravens from the Citadel, while exciting, has delayed production of the show, as there needs to be cold weather for the shoot. Usually, the cast and crew begin shooting many of the settings (except for those in the North) weeks after the season wraps around June, which means summer in the Northern hemisphere -- but things will have to change from now on.

"We don't have an air date yet," showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff explained to UFC Unfiltered not too long ago. "We're starting a bit later because at the end of this season, 'Winter is here' -- and that means that sunny weather doesn't really serve our purposes any more so we kind of pushed everything down the line so we can get some grim, grey weather even in the sunnier places that we shoot,"

Seeing as the people behind Game of Thrones have been filming in these locations for years, it seems like a little too much to ask that they move production to the southern hemisphere (like, say, New Zealand) just to shoot a couple more seasons. So, chances are we won't get Season 7 around April, as we've become accustomed.

via GIPHY

There's even worse news on this front, unfortunately: the remaining two seasons of the show will probably be shorter than the usual 10-episode seasons we've had so far.

Cheat Sheet reports there might be as few as 13 episodes left in the show, which means seven-episode or six-episode seasons for the remaining two years.

Starting with Season 6, Game of Thrones deviated from the book series it was originally based on, George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Due to the fact that the author failed to publish the sixth book of the saga before the last season aired, the show had to move forward with the story, and things will differ slightly from the books to the show, though reportedly the consequences will be the same.

Game of Thrones will return at some point of next year -- hopefully not too late!