Game of Thrones’ upcoming season will feature the biggest battle yet

Last Updated on July 31, 2021

Large scale spectacle isn't entirely limited to the big-screen as HBO's Game of Thrones is one of those few series which continually push the boundaries of what can be accomplished on television. When it comes to epic battles however, the show hadn't yet had the opportunity to stage a "proper" one, until now. While speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Game of Thrones writer/producer Bryan Cogman says that an episode of the upcoming sixth season will feature their biggest battle yet.

It’s definitely the biggest [action sequence yet], we’ve always wanted to get to a place – story-wise and budget-wise and time-wise and resource-wise – where we would be able to do a proper battle, with one army on one side, one army on another side.

That's not to say that the show hasn't staged impressive battles before; we've witnessed the Battle of Black Water in the second season, the Battle of Castle Black in season four, and one of the stand-out episodes of last season featured a massive army of the undead swarming the seaside outpost of Hardhome. The battle Cogman speaks of will be more like the classic battles of epic films, with one army on one side and another army on the other, and the resulting clash will be "highly tactical, yet character-driven" and be shown from beginning to end.

Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss often wondered why they didn't see more fully fleshed-out battles in movies and TV, but realized that when "you get into the nitty-gritty of what it takes to actually shoot these things in a way that isn’t just helter-skelter chaos but actually gives you a sense of battle geography and the ebb and flow, and you realize why.” The battle featured in the upcoming episode, which has been directed by "Hardhome" director Miguel Sapochnik, took a solid month of filming. David Benioff said that "Miguel did such a fantastic job with ‘Hardhome’ we thought we should bring him back – this time with horses. Horses are not easy, at all. And certainly in terms of numbers – number of extras, number of stuntmen, number of shooting days – it’s the biggest we’ve done.” In addition to this large scale battle, Benioff and Weiss have called the upcoming season their best one yet, which should hopefully give fans plenty to look forward to.

The sixth season of Game of Thrones will debut on HBO on April 24, 2016.