Game of Thrones season 8: Directors revealed for all episodes

They all have long GoT histories, though none directed in season 7

'The Battle of the Bastards' Miguel Sapochnik will return

With production on Game of Thrones' final season set to get underway in October, all the crew members will be in place for the six episodes, and this week news of their directors made it into the public domain.

It isn't yet clear who will be directing which episodes, but interestingly the instalment will be carved up between just three directors, none of whom worked on season 7.

They are as follows (via EW):

Miguel Sapochnik (an unknown number of episodes between 1 and 5)

The Brit earned an Emmy for his work on season 6 - which included 'The Battle of the Bastards' and 'The Winds of Winter', before ducking out of GoT to work on upcoming Netflix sci-fi drama Altered Carbon. He's back for season 8 and is also the man behind the epic season 5 episode 'Hardhome'.

David Nutter (an unknown number of episodes between 1 and 5)

The only other GoT director to earn an Emmy for his work, Nutter helmed season 5 finale 'Mother's Mercy' and Red Wedding episode 'The Rains of Castamere'. He is known in the industry as "the pilot whisperer" due to his ability to get new shows off to a great start.

David Benioff and D.B. Weiss (the finale)

The show's creators have written countless episodes but only ever directed two of them: season 3's 'Walk of Punishment' and season 4's 'Two Swords'.

Creators directing finales is something of a tradition though (see David Chase with The Sopranos, Vince Gilligan with Breaking Bad etc) and a nice way to cap off a show. Due to director's guild rules, however, only one will get the official credit for the episode.

We should know who is directing what fairly soon, but episode titles will be a closely guarded secret until the week before broadcast and likely not give much away (as they didn't with season 7).