George R. R. Martin reveals another Game of Thrones spin-off was shelved "a couple of years ago" at HBO

(Image credit: HBO)

George R.R. Martin has revealed that another Game of Thrones spin-off, this time taking place outside of Westeros, was shelved at HBO.

"One of these days I need to write that story about Braavos we were developing for HBO. They shelved that one a couple of years back, alas, but that does not mean I won’t go back to it… after WINDS OF WINTER is done, of course," Martin casually dropped at the end of his latest blog post.

Braavos is one of the Free Cities, the wealthiest of the Free Cities to be exact, located just east of Westeros. The city is made up of a hundred or so islands linked together by canals, as Martin waxes poetic on in the aforementioned blog post. In Game of Thrones season 6, as well as in the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, Arya Stark spends an extensive amount of time there under the protection of the Faceless Men.

The Winds of Winter is the planned sixth novel in the A Song of Ice and Fire series that Martin has been writing since around 2010. As of 2022, the novel was 'three-quarters' of the way finished, with a page count of 1,100-1,200 (H/T IGN).

"I've been telling you for 20 years that winter was coming. Winter is the time when things die, and cold and ice and darkness fill the world, so this is not going to be the happy feel-good that people may be hoping for. Some of the characters [are] in very dark places," Martin said of the book in 2016. "Things get worse before they get better, so things are getting worse for a lot of people."

The latest Game of Thrones spin-off, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, is slated for a 2025 release. The new series is based on George R. R. Martin's Tales of Dunk and Egg novellas, and is set some 100 years before the events of Game of Thrones.