The first footage of Game of Thrones' final season is here, but it's not all good news.

Any given episode of Game of Thrones has the power to make you cheer with joy and then sob with anguish, and the latest update from the eighth and final season of the series has had a very similar effect on fans.

The good news is that we’ve been given our first (albeit, very brief) glimpse of Game of Thrones season eight, the final season in the blockbuster fantasy TV series based on George R.R. Martin’s best-selling  A Song of Ice and Fire book series. 

Thanks to a trailer from HBO spruiking all of their upcoming new shows, fans were treated to a a tiny taste of the new season, which was super-cut with explosive and memorable moments from season seven. The marketing clip also offered sneak peaks of Big Little Lies season two, along with previews of fan favourites Veep, and Barry and new TV offerings such as Pod Save America and Camping.

If you blinked at all during the clip you probably would have missed the tiny piece of new season footage buried amid the season seven highlights.

It’s the shot depicting our hero Jon Snow (Kit Harington) emotionally embracing his “sister” Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner).

Now, when this footage was first released, some fans mistakenly thought that it too was previously seen footage from season seven, believing it was actually taken from the duo’s long-awaited Castle Black reunion seen in previous episodes

But in fact, it’s actually the two main cast characters reuniting at Winterfell in the final season of the show.

So make of that what you will, does this mean Sansa and Jon are the last two Starks left standing? We know Winterfell ends up burning to the ground before the finale episode, which means this shot is from the first half of season eight.

Take a look at the new HBO trailer and see if you can spot the season eight sneak peak. 

It has been confirmed by HBO that Game of Thrones will return for a final six episode stint that will air during the first half of 2019.

This is, unfortunately, where the bad news starts to kick in.

There have been a number of recent reports claiming that the new season of Game of Thrones had been “delayed” until mid-2019, off the back of news that the award-winning series will not be eligible for Emmy nominations until 2020, making fans worry that it would not be airing early in 2019 as they had previously believed.

Game of Thrones visual effects supervisor Joe Bauer kicked off the worry over the show’s season eight air date by telling The Huffington Post that it would take two years for the show to be eligible for their season eight work.

“We’re going to be toiling away on season eight until May of 2019, so it’s eight or nine months away,” he confirmed.

“We wrap in December and we air our first episode in April [2019],” she told the publication.

While this piece of information now appears to be false, what we do know for sure is that Game of Thrones season eight will air in the first six months of 2019. Until then, you can catch up on all previous seasons on Foxtel On Demand. 

For more TV news, updates and recommendations you can follow Mamamia Entertainment Editor  Laura Brodnik on Facebook.