The wait is almost over as there are just five weeks left before Game of Thrones’ final season lands on TV. Not that we need to be any more excited for the conclusion of HBO’s phenomenon, the first full-length trailer has arrived.

Up until now, we’ve only been given brief teases of season 8, but the first trailer gives fans a proper look at what to expect from the final run of episodes. The gruelling production has cut no corners to deliver the finale that fans are craving, and if you thought the Battle of the Bastards was epic, the battle sequences on offer here are going to be even more extreme. Battle of the Bastards director Miguel Sapochnik helms the third and fifth episodes of the final season, and speaking to Entertainment Weekly he revealed the production teams commitment to delivering an unparalleled finale

“We built this massive new part of Winterfell and originally thought, ‘We’ll film this part here and this part there,’ and basically broke it down into so many pieces it would be shot like a Marvel movie, with never any flow or improvisation.

Even on Star Wars, they build certain parts of the set and then add huge elements of green screen. And that makes sense. There’s an efficiency to that. But I turned to the producers and said, ‘I don’t want to do 11 weeks of night shoots, and no one else does. But if we don’t, we’re going to lose what makes Game of Thrones cool and that is that it feels real.”

The final battle took 11 weeks of night shoots in less than favourable (yet union sanctioned) conditions with hundreds of extras and dozens of primary cast members. Who will be left standing to sit on the Iron Throne? We’ll find out soon enough as Game of Thrones returns for its final six episodes on April 14.