‘House of the Dragon’ Season 3: Trailer, Release Date, Plot, Cast

HBO was betting big on the success of “House of the Dragon” long before the season two finale.

The network renewed the Targaryen-centric “Game of Thrones” prequel for another round ahead of the second season premiere in June 2024. Francesca Orsi, HBO’s head of drama, praised the team behind the hit fantasy series in the renewal announcement, including author George R. R. Martin and showrunner Ryan Condal.

“George, Ryan, and the rest of our incredible executive producers, cast, and crew, have reached new heights with the phenomenal second season of ‘House of the Dragon,'” Orsi said in a press release. “We are in awe of the dragon-sized effort the entire team has put into the creation of a spectacular season two, with a scope and scale that is only rivaled by its heart.”

Although Martin has since stepped back from “House of the Dragon,” season three will continue to adapt his fictional history book about House Targaryen, “Fire & Blood,” and the civil war known in Westerosi lore as the Dance of the Dragons.

Here’s everything we know about season three.

‘House of the Dragon’ season 3 will premiere in June

A teaser trailer for “House of the Dragon” season three was released on Thursday, days before the first season finale of HBO’s newest hit prequel, “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.”

The teaser indicates that “House of the Dragon” will return in June 2026, though HBO has not set a specific premiere date.

Back in March 2025, once production had officially commenced in the UK, Condal attributed the multi-year gap between seasons to the intricate storyline and the show’s budget.

“There’s been no television show in history that ever said, ‘We have too much money and too much time to make this,'” Condal told Entertainment Weekly. “You’re always making decisions as you go along as to, how are we going to use the resources we have right now to tell the best story we can possibly tell? But I appreciate everybody’s patience.”

“House of the Dragon” veterans Clare Kilner, Andrij Parekh, and Loni Peristere will return to direct the new eight-episode arc, per EW. They’ll be joined by Nina Lopez-Corrado.

The first ‘House of the Dragon’ season 3 trailer shows Rhaenyra preparing to seize the Iron Throne

The central conflict in “House of the Dragon” is between Rhaenyra Targaryen, the eldest child and chosen heir of the late King Viserys, and her half-brother, Aegon II Targaryen, the late king’s eldest son. Fans colloquially refer to the warring siblings and their factions as “the blacks” and “the greens,” respectively.

At the end of season two, viewers saw Aegon flee from King’s Landing while his mother, Alicent Hightower, secretly colluded with Rhaenyra to give her the Iron Throne.

The season three teaser offers a glimpse into how this alliance will be received. Although Rhaenyra trusts that Alicent will keep her word to surrender, Rhaenyra’s eldest son, Jace, seems to dissuade her from the plan. Meanwhile, Alicent returns to King’s Landing to find her second son, Aemond, sitting on the Iron Throne in Aegon’s absence.

“The king has abdicated the throne,” Aemond says in a voiceover. “A new dawn is coming. A new line of unsullied kings.”

However, Alicent appears prepared to keep her word, especially knowing that Rhaenyra has recruited a group of Targaryen bastards as dragon riders. Alicent knows the greens are outnumbered, especially with Aegon missing and her daughter, Helaena, unwilling to ride her dragon into battle. It’s likely that Rhaenyra will become queen, with or without a surrender.

“Soon or late, Rhaenyra will send her new dragons here,” Alicent says in the teaser. “It would be the end.”

The season 3 plot will cover four major events from the books

We can’t say for certain what the season three plot will entail, but there’s at least one big battle on the horizon: the Battle of the Gullet.

While speaking to EW, Condal promised that season three would cover “four major events” from the source material, including the pivotal naval assault known as the Battle of the Gullet, which demands significant production resources. And to the fans who have been begging for more action, rest assured: Condal guaranteed plenty of bloodshed.

“In many ways, the Gullet has been on the minds of the production for about three years now and trying to figure out how we were going to mount it in a way that was both producible and exciting, thrilling,” Condal told EW.

“I would like to think that this is probably the most complex sequence that’s ever been done for television,” he continued, “not necessarily the most expensive or the longest shoot or anything like that, but just based on the number of moving pieces, the amount of different disciplines, media that have to be blended together to achieve success because you’re talking about sea and ships and dragons and action.”

As for the other three “major events” that Condal promised, there are plenty of historic showdowns, character debuts, and prophesied downfalls that we can predict will occur in season three based on what happens in the book, some of which have already been teased in the show. (“Fire & Blood” spoilers ahead!)

These include Rhaenyra taking over King’s Landing; Alicent’s youngest son, Daeron, finally entering the narrative; and the deaths of both Aemond and Rhaenyra’s husband, Daemon. However, “House of the Dragon” has begun to make some bold adaptation choices — so anything could be on the horizon.

“We’re cresting that narrative parabola here and starting to come down into, if not the endgame, the midpoint and getting into the late Act 2 and moving onto the start of Act 3,” Condal told EW. “Anybody that’s read that book knows that the narrative gets bigger and grimmer as it goes along, and the show has to match that ambition as best it possibly can.”

If you want a preview of what’s ahead, though, you can pick up “Fire & Blood” yourself. You’ll probably want to start somewhere in the chapter “The Dying of the Dragons: The Red Dragon and the Gold” to catch up on season two and read ahead for what may be to come.

The show’s core cast will be joined by a few newcomers

A press release from HBO confirmed the show’s big players — among them Emma D’Arcy (Rhaenyra Targaryen), Olivia Cooke (Alicent Hightower), Matt Smith (Daemon Targaryen), Steve Toussaint (Corlys Velaryon), Ewan Mitchell (Aemond Targaryen), Tom Glynn-Carney (Aegon II Targaryen), Harry Collett (Jacaerys Velaryon), Bethany Antonia (Baela Targaryen), Phoebe Campbell (Rhaena Targaryen), Phia Saban (Helaena Targaryen), Sonoya Mizuno (Mysaria), Rhys Ifans (Otto Hightower), and Fabien Frankel (Ser Criston Cole) — will all return for season three.

As for newcomers, “Gladiator” star Tommy Flanagan has been cast as Ser Roderick Dustin, known as “Roddy the Ruin” in the book, while “A Complete Unknown” actor Dan Fogler will play Torrhen Manderly. Both characters are formidable knights from the North, where House Stark rules.

Farther south, James Norton will make his “HOTD” debut as Ormund Hightower, Alicent’s cousin and Lord of Oldtown. The season two finale shows a glimpse of Ormund’s army marching to counter Rhaenyra’s forces accompanied by Daeron and his dragon Tessarion.

Other casting decisions have yet to be publicized. Chief among them is Daeron himself, who was sent away at a young age to squire for Ormund at Oldtown.

Condal confirmed to EW that Daeron will show up soon, but declined to say who will play him.

“He’s a big feature in the book, but if you read the book narrative sequentially, the material we’ve covered so far didn’t really have a lot of call for Daeron in it, which is why we’re getting to this now,” Condal explained.

There’s also the matter of Nettles, a character from “Fire & Blood” who claims the dragon Sheepstealer. In the season two finale of “House of the Dragon,” Rhaena finally comes across what we presume is the dragon Sheepstealer — but it remains to be seen if she successfully claims the dragon and takes over that storyline, or if Nettles will still appear.

What’s going on with King Aegon?

Aegon, also known as Aegon the Elder to book readers, suffers near-fatal injuries during season two’s battle at Rook’s Rest, leaving him mostly immobile.

In the season two finale, Lord Larys Strong arranges for Aegon to covertly escape King’s Landing in anticipation of Rhaenyra’s imminent coup. Of all the finale’s open-ended questions, Aegon’s future seems most uncertain.

The details of Aegon’s period of exile are similarly murky in “Fire & Blood” — but don’t expect him to disappear from the screen. Condal confirmed that the disgraced king will remain “a big, big part of the show.”

“He’s kind of lost to history in the sense that nobody really knows what happened,” Condal told EW. “We took that, as the writers, as a great opportunity to figure out. That was one of the great challenges of writing season two: figuring out something that would work and be satisfying, but also not cause ripple effects in the narrative and change where the other big pieces are going. Honestly, I think it’s one of the best stories that we cracked this year.”

In an interview with Business Insider, Glynn-Carney also teased a revenge-fueled journey for Aegon in season three.

“Even though his physicality has changed now, I don’t particularly think for him, in terms of how unpredictable and how volatile he is — I don’t think that’s going to change at all,” the actor said. “If anything, there will be more. So I’m really looking forward to getting back on season three, and taking him on this next chapter of his journey and really pushing the boundaries even more with him this time.”

Will ‘House of the Dragon’ end after season 3?

Nope! HBO has already confirmed that “House of the Dragon” will return for a fourth and final season.

A four-season arc has seemed like the plan for a while. Martin said on his personal blog in October 2022 that he couldn’t see “House of the Dragon” covering the entire Dance of the Dragons in fewer than four seasons.

Martin has since criticized Condal and HBO for ignoring his objections while writing season three, particularly regarding changes to the source material.

“What I would say is George introduced us to Ryan as the person that he thought would be the best to create ‘House the Dragon,'” HBO chief Casey Bloys told Deadline. “And I will say Ryan has been an excellent showrunner and a really great partner and collaborator, so we embrace his vision and his creative choices, or we wouldn’t have done it.”

Bloys said that Martin has been focused instead on “A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms” — aka the “Tales of Dunk and Egg” adaptation — on which he’s credited as a co-creator and co-executive producer alongside showrunner Ira Parker.

“The idea that he is going to agree with every creator or showrunner that is either developing or producing, two artists are not always going to agree,” Bloys added of Martin. “So, some of this comes with the territory.”

Palmer Haasch and Caralynn Matassa contributed to an earlier version of this story.