Whether you still love Game of Thrones years after the finale or you’ve burned that bridge following the controversial season 8, the show was a television phenomenon like nothing that had come before. It’s easy to forget nowadays, when there’s a new big budget science fiction and fantasy show every couple of weeks, but when Game of Thrones first began airing in 2011 it was revolutionary. HBO took a huge chance on a show about dragons and warring noble houses and monsters lurking in the frozen north beyond an eight-hundred-foot tall ice wall, and it paid off for all of us.
As with any success, Game of Thrones has bred no shortage of imitators. When the series ended in 2019, it left a power vacuum that many streaming services and networks have sought to fill. From Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos outright proclaiming he wanted Amazon Studios to “find the next Game of Thrones” to the myriad fantasy shows created by Netflix and others, the Streaming Wars have raged across the realm. And while the battle continues, enough contenders have come and gone at this point that it’s worth taking time to look at these hopefuls for the throne, and to gauge how successful they’ve been at taking it.
3. The Witcher
The first season of The Witcher debuted the same year that Game of Thrones ended, and there’s some shared ground. The Witcher follows the adventures of a professional monster hunter named Geralt of Rivia, but we soon see that the human beings who populate the Continent can be just as vexing as the bloodthirsty beasts. Geralt spends at least as much time getting roped into the games of high lords and ladies as he does fighting Leshy and the like, and it’s a tossup which is more dangerous. There are also generous helpings of the sex and violence that drew so many eyes to Game of Thrones, although it’s often a bit more cartoony.
The Witcher is based on a series of books by Andrzej Sapkowski, but the show has made some important changes. Most notably, the books — at least the early ones — stick pretty closely to Geralt’s point of view, but the show makes bigger use of the ensemble cast to produce a Game of Thrones-like effect, where we have multiple stories running concurrently that may eventually intersect. It’s hard to look at that and wonder how often they talked about Game of Thrones in the writers’ room.
The Witcher sets itself apart from HBO’s mega-hit by focusing more on the high fantasy aspects; there are plenty of elves, dryads and other fantasy fixings here. That includes many prominent sorcerer characters, whereas Game of Thrones pretty much just had Melisandre. Then there’s the tone, which is broader and more goofy — whether intentional or otherwise — than anything Game of Thrones served up.
The Witcher isn’t to everyone’s taste, but it’s gained a large fanbase eager for more. Netflix is determined to give it to them; in addition to more seasons, it’s made an animated movie and is debuting a spinoff show this year. The Witcher has done a solid job of scratching the Game of Thrones itch for people, although it’s different enough to not have really taken its place. – Dan
4. The Wheel of Time
The Wheel of Time is another obvious contender for the throne. The first book in Robert Jordan’s doorstopping fantasy series came out years before A Game of Thrones, and the two series definitely share some things in common. Both of them kind of ask the question, “What if The Lord of the Rings was more realistic?” For The Wheel of Time, that answer takes the form of a story about a prophesied chosen one, Rand al’Thor, who resists his destiny every step of the way, and who is jerked around by various groups hoping to use him for their own ends. Some of the plans within plans and political feints will feel comfortingly familiar to Game of Thrones fans.
The Wheel of Time also has a richly imagined fantasy world that dwarfs pretty much anything else in the genre. We’re talking multiple far-flung civilizations, lots of different sorts of magic, and backstories that go back thousands of years. If you want world-building, The Wheel of Time has it.
That said, The Wheel of Time also has a precocious-teen-protagonists-on-an-adventure angle that Game of Thrones never really did, although the books ease off on that aspect as they go on. It’s also milder in tone that Game of Thrones; you won’t find much in the way of sex or extreme violence here, and even though plenty of characters have ambiguous motives, there’s ultimately a pretty traditional good-vs-evil binary at work. On The Wheel of Time, we’re more certain who the good guys are. – Dan
5. Shadow and Bone
Hollywood has long adapted books into movies, and since the success of Game of Thrones, there’s been a boom in longform TV adaptations as well, particularly when it comes to fantasy and sci-fi books. Shadow and Bone is set in author Leigh Bardugo’s “Grishaverse,” a world filled with magic, betrayal, and mythic creatures that often draws inspiration from czarist Russia. It was one of Netflix’s big fantasy shows of 2021, and the first season was a respectably large hit with a solid budget and great cast. It’s kind of unique in that it’s not just a straight adaptation of one of Bardugo’s series, but rather combines elements from her main Shadow and Bone trilogy with her Six of Crows duology.
The result might be one of those very rare occasions where the show is actually better than the novels, especially where the original trilogy is concerned. The show hops between characters much more than the novels, weaving multiple plot threads together to make a more compelling whole. Game of Thrones didn’t start this trend, but it’s hard not to think of that show when watching the interlocking narratives of Shadow and Bone.
Shadow and Bone shoots for a younger audience than Game of Thrones. While it can get dark at times, it’s very accessible for teen audiences. Overall, the series established itself quite well in its first season. Considering that many of the best parts of the series still lie ahead and Netflix is hard at work on season 2, it may have a good run ahead of it. – Daniel
6. Outlander
Like Shadow and Bone, Outlander is as much a romance show as it is a fantasy story. But that’s about where the similarities end. Unlike Netflix’s fantasy hit, Outlander is geared heavily toward adults; it has content that is every bit as graphic as anything on Game of Thrones, ranging from battles to sex to violent assault. It’s a hugely successful genre series with a very dedicated fanbase.
Unlike a lot of other shows on this list, Outlander began when Game of Thrones was in the middle of its run and could be described as more of a contemporary than a successor. Still, its rise is very closely tied to HBO’s series. The first season of Outlander began airing on Starz in August 2014, debuting in the same Sunday that the fourth season of Thrones had vacated just a month and a half before. Since this was back in the days when we were all still watching these shows live on linear television, many premium cable subscriptions included both Starz and HBO. It was a time when few other genre shows of this size were on air, which allowed Outlander to pick up a lot of Thrones fans who didn’t know what to watch between seasons.
When Outlander returned for the second half of its first first season the following April, it was opposite Game of Thrones season 5. As such, it started airing on Saturdays, almost certainly so that it would not be directly competing with Thrones. It remained in that timeslot until its third season, when it started releasing in the fall and could reclaim Sunday nights.
Only in 2020, when Thrones was no longer on the air, did Outlander return to its spring timeslot. Of all the shows on this list, Outlander was the only one that was actually a direct competitor for Thrones when it was on. It’s still going strong today.
As with basically every other show we’ve discussed so far, Outlander is also based on a book series; this one is by Diana Gabaldon, who happens to be a close friend of George R.R. Martin’s. Outlander already had an enormous fanbase when the show was picked up by Starz and it’s only grown since then. It’s currently on its sixth season, and will become the longest running show in Starz history when it premieres its seventh next year. – Daniel
7. His Dark Materials
His Dark Materials is an HBO show adapted from a beloved fantasy series that debuted around half a year after Game of Thrones ended. It was almost like GoT was passing on the baton…
That said, His Dark Materials has always been a little too small and strange to properly take the place of Game of Thrones in the minds of the masses. It’s nominally about Lyra Belacqua, a precocious orphan who sets out on a quest alongside her dæmon (basically her soul externalized as a shape-shifting familiar) to rescue her friend, who’s been kidnapped by a mysterious organization working for the tyrannical church that runs Lyra’s world.
And it just gets weirder from there; we’ve got talking polar bears, alternate dimensions, actual angels and much more. His Dark Materials sometimes feels a bit more like The Chronicles of Narnia than A Song of Ice and Fire, seeing as it follows a couple of kids stumbling into weird and wonderful new worlds. But you can feel the Game of Thrones influence on the show specifically, which sprawls out a bit as it tries to deepen characters only sketched on the page to achieve more of an ensemble feel.
As a fan of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials books, I think the HBO adaptation has been a little hit and miss, but there’s enough good there to make it worth a watch, even if it’s not gonna take the place of Game of Thrones. Its upcoming third and final season promises to be the best yet. – Dan
8. Westworld
The further down the list we get, the further away from Game of Thrones we go. Westworld may be a lavish genre show on HBO, but its focus and style are very different.
First off, there are the milieus, with Game of Thrones taking place in a fantasy world based on medieval England and Westworld a future where it can be hard to tell advanced androids apart from actual human beings. Both shows tell complicated stories, but on GoT, the complexity comes from the sheer number of characters and moving parts — the story itself is relatively straightforward. On Westworld, the writers like to grapple with heady sci-fi concepts involving consciousness and free will. And they often present these ideas in circuitous form, with lots of flashbacks, flash-forwards, parallel timelines, and more.
Westworld can go a bit far with this technique, to the point where the more recent seasons have confused rather than fascinated viewers. The show’s first season inspired a ton of buzz, but it’s dropped off somewhat since then. Game of Thrones, meanwhile, just got bigger every year.
At this point, we can safely say that Westworld isn’t going to replace Game of Thrones, but it deserves recognition for following in that show’s footsteps with its ambition, its production budget, and its adventurous spirit. – Dan
9. The Expanse
Stepping deeper into sci-fi, we come to The Expanse. For a long time, whenever anyone asked me what show they should be watching after Game of Thrones, this was my go-to answer. Despite the fact that it is a sci-fi story complete with interplanetary warfare and alien civilizations, The Expanse has a lot of things in common with Thrones. There’s political intrigue between various factions of Earth, Mars, and the people of the asteroid belt (Belters). There’s a huge cast of characters, incredible worldbuilding and no shortage of shocking and memorable deaths.
Like Outlander, The Expanse started airing while Game of Thrones was still in its prime. Its first season debuted on the Syfy Channel in 2015, but after three seasons it was cancelled. After a passionate fan campaign, Amazon Studios picked up the series and continued it for three more seasons.
The influences of Game of Thrones and George R.R. Martin run a little deeper on this one. Did The Expanse try to copy Game of Thrones? No. Not at all, actually. But the two authors who wrote the books, Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, have close personal ties to Martin and have worked with him in various capacities for years.
The Expanse is one of the few book series out there that, tonally and stylistically, feels like a very natural complement to Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. That means that all The Expanse had to do to scratch that itch was be faithful to the novels, which it has been, even when things were changed. – Daniel
10. Halo
Halo is one of the newer contenders for the crown, but it is very clear that Paramount+ is doing everything in its power to turn the show into a phenomenon. Based on the long-running Halo video game franchise, the show follows Master Chief John-117, a genetically modified human super soldier known as a SPARTAN. The games had a decent story themselves, but really what they’re known for is their multiplayer mode where players can slaughter each other in their quest for glory. And by glory, I mean laughing into a microphone and squatting repeatedly over their opponents’ corpses. I don’t make the rules.
A TV show based on a game like Halo sounds risky on paper, but the show has managed to tell a fairly compelling story so far. Yes, there’s an interstellar conflict, but Halo is honing in on specific characters in ways reminiscent of the quiet hallway scenes from Game of Thrones, where power players debated the grander implications of their actions. It’s shooting for a broader fanbase than Thrones, so while it has plenty of blistering sci-fi violence, don’t expect much nudity or cursing.
The biggest way that Halo is following in Game of Thrones’ footsteps is simply by getting made in the first place. The project was originally announced in 2013 before spending almost a decade in development hell, leading many to believe we’d never see it. Only after Game of Thrones came along and convinced studios that it was possible for an expensive genre show to succeed did Halo finally come to fruition. It’s trying very hard to carve out its own niche, but only time will tell whether it will succeed. – Daniel
11. Foundation
A recent addition to the list of contenders from Apple TV+, Foundation is an adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s classic novel series about a mathematician who accurately predicts the coming fall of a galactic empire, and the galaxy-wide dark age that follows…
Or at least that things start. The Foundation story is told over generations, with new characters taking over as leads as the old ones die off. That’s tricky to do on a TV show, where we want familiar faces to get attached to. We’re only one season into the Foundation TV show, but Apple TV+ has already changed things considerably by combining characters, altering the timeline, and adding in more action than Asimov had in his original books.
You can feel the influence of Game of Thrones in some of these choices — the rulers of the Galactic Empire, who have a much-expanded role on the TV series, do a lot of GoT-esque politicking, for instance. But at least in this first season, this approach seems somewhat at odds with the idea-driven source material. Foundation is an ambitious project, but it may be too divided within itself to really capture the zeitgeist like Game of Thrones did. We’ll see what future seasons bring. – Dan
12. The Shannara Chronicles
The Shannara Chronicles was MTV’s attempt at hopping on the Game of Thrones fantasy bandwagon, and the effort was probably doomed from the start. The show was based on the Shannara book series by Terry Brooks, which is one of the largest fantasy book series of all time. The first novel, The Sword of Shannara, was the first fantasy novel to top The New York Times bestseller list back in 1977, and the series has been incredibly influential on the genre as a whole. (My favorite comparison is that if J.R.R. Tolkien is the grandfather of modern fantasy, Shannara author Terry Brooks is its quirky uncle.)
But that doesn’t necessarily equal a great show, and Shannara had a few things working against it. The biggest is that many of the Shannara books focus on different generations of protagonists. The MTV series adapted the second book, The Elfstones of Shannara, most likely because the first is extremely similar to The Lord of the Rings. Elfstones is where Brooks’ novels start to find their own footing. However, the following book mixes things up with new characters. This works a lot better in books than on TV, and so when it came time for The Shannara Chronicles season 2, the show made all sorts of deviations and weird choices that just didn’t quite work. Add in the fact that Shannara changed networks to Spike TV for season 2, and it was messy all around.
Shannara’s best quality was that it leaned into the fact that the series is set on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and emphasized it more than the novels did; there are metal ruins of skyscrapers, for example. But for all that, the show never quite caught on. It felt like a show that wanted to get in on the Game of Thrones hype but focused so narrowly on a teenage audience (who would have likely been unfamiliar with Brooks’ books, since they started coming out in the ’70s) that it never quite found its niche despite some solid performances from the lead actors. – Daniel
13. Cursed
Speaking of fantasy shows that tried to hone in on a teen audience but failed to grab anyone’s attention, let’s talk about Cursed. Based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Thomas Wheeler, this 2020 Netflix series is a reimagining of the Arthurian Legend from the point of view of Nimue. Except Nimue is a badass mage who also happens to wield the mythical sword Excalibur on her own adventures long before Arthur ever puts his grubby hands on it, Merlin is a drunk, and Arthur is an ineffectual sellsword.
Now, aside from some odd questions about the basic premise (did we really need a drunkard Merlin?), the show in general just didn’t quite work. Netflix unceremoniously canceled Cursed after a single season, so whatever plans it might have had for Nimue and company, we’ll never know. (Unless we read the novel, of course.)
Cursed is a good reminder of what can happen when fantasy shows are given fairly large budgets but rush the production. The costumes look like they were picked off the laundry lines at the nearest latest Renaissance Faire, and many of the special effects are borderline ridiculous. My favorite example is the end of the series premiere, where Nimue slays some wolves with Excalibur and the blood splatter gradually covers the camera lens. Perhaps it was an intentional nod to the graphic novel, but in the show it just looks silly.
It’s clear Cursed was influenced by the Game of Thrones craze; the book itself only released in 2019 and goes for a darker, grittier take on classic Arthurian Legacy characters. We can’t comment on the novel, but the show died the death that awaits all unworthy usurpers to the throne. – Daniel
14. The Mandalorian
The Mandalorian came out the same year that Game of Thrones ended, in 2019. Obviously the settings are different: medieval times vs a galaxy far, far away. But the pioneering spirit is there, and The Mandalorian creator Jon Favreau acknowledged the influence of Game of Thrones when talking about the second season of his show:
"The world was really captivated by ‘Game of Thrones’ and how that evolved as the characters followed different storylines — that’s very appealing to me as an audience member…The new season is about introducing a larger story in the world. The stories become less isolated, yet each episode has its own flavor, and hopefully we’re bringing a lot more scope to the show."
Like a lot of series on this list, The Mandalorian takes two big cues from Game of Thrones: structural ambition and a huge budget. And between the slick production, the focused writing, the solid performances, the adorable Baby Yoda and the Star Wars name, it’s been a hit!
That said, it’s hard to pin the success of The Mandalorian on residual interest in Game of Thrones, since Star Wars is more than big enough to have its own throne. The Mandalorian also sets itself apart from Game of Thrones because it’s one part of what Disney hopes will be an entire Television Cinematic Universe. It’s possible The Mandalorian wouldn’t be here without Game of Thrones, but now that it is, it’s perfectly capable of standing on its own. – Dan
And speaking of mega-sized Disney franchises angling to take over the world…
15. Marvel TV
Of all the film empires out there, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the one that is actually larger than Game of Thrones ever was. It has no need of some grubby throne; it’s got space ships and superpowers and multiverses. The original Iron Man film kicked off the MCU in 2008, and the rest is history.
Things got especially interesting in 2021, when Marvel made the leap from exclusively producing movies and licensing out the right to produce shows like Daredevil and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and started making their own TV shows on Disney+. For the first time, we had TV series that tied into the massive MCU tapestry.
As good as Daredevil and the pre-Disney+ Marvel shows were, you couldn’t really say they were directly influenced by Game of Thrones. However, I’d argue that the new run of MCU shows starting with WandaVision absolutely is.
To start, Game of Thrones convinced studios that big budget science fiction and fantasy shows could conquer the market. Around season 6, Thrones’ budget had ballooned to around $10 million per episode, which only grew in the final two seasons. At the time, that was unheard of for a TV show. Fast forward to 2022, and there are plenty of studios dropping that kind of money, from Netflix to Amazon and even Paramount+.
And with the MCU, it’s just assumed. Hawkeye, for example, cost a reported $25 million per episode.
Marvel is taking the formula that worked so well for them at the movies and replicating it on the small screen. The Marvel shows have helped launch the Disney+ streaming platform, and while some are better than others, there’s no denying that they are here to stay. – Daniel
Some of the biggest contenders for the throne won’t be out until later this year. If there’s any show that could truly become the “next Game of Thrones,” it’s probably one of them, starting with…
1. House of the Dragon
Since before Game of Thrones ended, HBO has been working on a number of successor shows to follow it up. This August, we’re actually going to get to see the first of them.
House of the Dragon is based on author George R.R. Martin’s fake history book Fire & Blood; specifically, the show will detail a brutal civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons that took place some 200 years before Game of Thrones. You may recall Shireen Baratheon talking about it to Davos Seaworth shortly before she was burned at the stake. The gist is that two branches of the Targaryen family had competing claims to the Iron Throne and tore the realm apart fighting over it.
Being a Thrones spinoff show, House of the Dragon is likely going to have a lot of DNA in common with its predecessor. This period of Westerosi history is fraught with political scheming and betrayals, duels, battles, dragons (so many dragons), and star-crossed romances. Many networks have produced their own fantasy shows since Game of Thrones began, but House of the Dragon promises to have all the other gritty, complex medieval drama that the original series did as well.
If any show is realistically going to become the next Game of Thrones, it’s this one. Unless it’s awful. Since it’s not out yet, we can’t be certain…but considering that one of its showrunners is Miguel Sapochnik, the director behind classic Thrones episodes like “Battle of the Bastards” and “Hardhome,” there’s a lot to be optimistic about. – Daniel
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power
The other big fantasy show on the way in 2022 is The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, (one of) Amazon Prime Video’s big swings to conquer the fantasy genre. It’s a prequel to The Lord of the Rings which details the events of the Second Age of Middle-earth, when the mighty human kingdom of Numenor was at its height, Elves split their time between their home on the distant shores of Valinor and their vacation homes in Rivendell, and Sauron was learning how to make jewelry. There are no Nazgul, no Fellowships, and not even any hobbits; instead we get their ancient ancestors, the “harfoots.”
The jury is very much out on whether The Rings of Power will be any good; we know very little about the show, and Amazon doesn’t have the track record for us to just assume it will be a success.
What they do have is money, lots and lots of money. They’re throwing as much of it as they can spare at The Rings of Power, reportedly over half a billion dollars just to secure the rights and make the first two seasons of the show. That’s almost double what Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movie trilogy cost.
We won’t know whether The Rings of Power or House of the Dragon is worthy of the fantasy television crown for a while yet, but either one could make a serious play for world domination. Time will tell. They’ll both be on in the fall, so it should be fun watching them compete.
Until then, there are plenty of shows that have already come out. Let’s talk about those series that have already staked their claim on the hearts and minds of viewers…or died horrible deaths in obscurity. – Daniel
Thus concludes our round-up of 15 shows that have tried (or will try) their hand at ruling the realm. The back and forth has been as cutthroat as anything on Game of Thrones, and it will likely heat up in the coming months with House of the Dragon and The Rings of Power. In the game of television thrones, you win or you’re cancelled.
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