Winter's a long time coming! HBO confirms its medieval fantasy blockbuster Game Of Thrones won't return to the small screen until 2019

For fans longing for the return of Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons this isn't necessarily great news.

Game Of Thrones Season 8 will not hit small screens until 2019, HBO confirmed on Thursday.

That means the medieval fantasy is sitting out 2018 entirely as has long been rumored even before actress Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa Stark, made the big reveal in Variety last month.

Long wait: HBO confirmed on Thursday that Game Of Thrones, co-starring Emelia Clarke's Daenerys Targaryen and her dragon, will not return to the screen until 2019

Season 7 wrapped after just seven episodes on August 27 with an 80-minute segment called The Dragon And The Wolf.

It contained a slew of reveals not least of which was that Jon, played by Kit Harington, is actually the son of actor Wilf Scolding's Rhaegar Targaryen and Aisling Franciosi's Lyanna Stark, long written out of the series.

That makes him the heir to the Iron Throne.

Shockingly, it also makes him the nephew of Daenerys Targaryen, played by Emilia Clarke, which means their lusty romance is incest.

Slew of reveals: It turned out that Jon Snow, played by Kit Harington, is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne and that his love interest Daenerys is actually his aunt - but he won't know that until the series resumes in 2019

The final scenes showed the Night King riding undead dragon Viserion with the White Walkers leading an army of the undead as they finally battered down the Great Wall that had kept the south safe for millennia.

The long threatened Winter has come, indeed.

But fans will have to wait at least a year to find out how it all pans out with HBO yet to reveal an exact date for the show's return in 2019.

Faithful few: Conleth Hill as Lord Varys, Peter Dinklage as Tyrion Lannister, Nathalie Emmanuel as Missandei, Emilia as Daenerys, Liam Cunningham as Davos Seaworth and Kit as Jon Snow

What is known is that the final season of the megahit fantasy series will consist of six episodes.

Sophie previously told Variety that production on Season 8 began in October and is set to run into the middle of 2018.

Pushing back GOT's airdate also gives author George R.R. Martin more time to release the next book in his hit A Song Of Ice And Fire series, The Winds Of Winter, according to Entertainment Weekly.

Incestuous siblings: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Jaime Lannister and Lena Headey as his scheming sister Cersei

Given that Martin plans one more final book in the series after that, A Dream Of Spring, the HBO series is still expected to reveal its ending before Martin’s version hits bookstores.

Martin is also involved with the five Thrones prequels in development, none of which have yet been greenlit.

Meanwhile, Season 7 of Game Of Thrones was the show’s highest-rated yet. The finale was watched by 16.5 million viewers, including people who watched the episode as it aired and night-of streams.

Winter is here: The undead dragon breathed fire at the ice Wall, bringing it down and unleashing an army of zombies on Westeros