Game of Thrones: War for Westeros is an upcoming video game from PlaySide Studios that puts players in control of various factions vying for supremacy of the Seven Kingdoms. It's a real-time strategy game in the vein of Warcraft or Starcraft, so you'll build up units, develop strategies, and then send them into battle as an omniscient general, watching and reacting as they succeed or fail.
This being a Game of Thrones game, there will some interesting specialty units, including dragons; it's hard to imagine your side losing if you have a fire-breathing flying beast on your side. But dragons do die; we've already seen a few bite the dust on HBO's prequel series House of the Dragon, and we'll see a lot more follow as the story continues.
Apparently, this is much on the mind of the game director behind War for Westeros, Ryan McMahon. "The dragons have been a big focus for us," he told PC Gamer. "We've actually got a bit of an R&D team specifically for dragons. People, as well as projects, that are dedicated to just making the dragons."
The battles in War for Westeros don't have to follow the actual battles from the show; that became clear in the cinematic trailer, which ends with the Night King killing Jon Snow and bringing him back as an undead wight. I think we can assume that a lot more dragons will die in War for Westeros than did on the show, which means the team at PlaySide needed to figure out what exactly happens when they expire. "The dragons are like bombs," said PlaySide executive Michael McAlister. "The implication is that when a dragon crashes into the ground, it explodes like a nuclear bomb. The back and forth about what actually happens when a dragon isn't alive is absolutely fascinating."
"You know, in House of the Dragon, you're going to see them die a lot, and there's usually some sort of explosion. There are things about why they would explode in death. That's a really interesting debate. Does it [the explosion] happen all the time? Or does it happen at all?"
We have indeed seen dragons explode upon death in House of the Dragon. Take the season 2 episode "The Red Dragon and the Gold." When Rhaenys Targaryen's dragon Meraxes is killed and falls into Rook's Rest, there's a huge fireball.
It makes some sense; dragons can breathe fire, so they have some kind of pilot light inside them. Maybe that explodes when they die. Or maybe that only happens when they fall out of the sky and hit the ground; maybe the impact causes them to explode. I'm just guessing here; it's up to PlaySide to figure out the specifics. In any case, I can see how that could play into strategies. If your dragon unit dies, it's a loss, but if their body crashes into an enemy army and explodes, that would be to your advantage.
There's no release date set for Game of Thrones: War for Westeros as of yet, but expect it out on PC sometime in 2026. In the meanwhile, a new action-adventure game called Game of Thrones: Kingsroad just came out; that one is available for PC and mobile devices.
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