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"W hen you play the game of thrones, you win or you die." Those prophetic words spoken by Cersei Lannister to Ned Stark in Season 1 sum up the entirety of Season 8 of HBO's cult series Game of Thrones. During this final season, characters fight to the death to rule the Seven Kingdoms and to sit atop the coveted Iron Throne, while several visual effects facilities also waged battles and created the chaos, destruction, and death that ensues. Fans waited anxiously over a year and a half for the eighth and final season of the series, although filming for it began right aer Season 7 aired. The visual effects prep started even before that, with no pause in the action for this department. "Still, it was a mad dash the entire time right up to the end," says Joe Bauer, visual effects super- visor on the series, who works closely with VFX producer Steve Kullback. The final season contained more than 3,000 VFX shots, with nearly half of those (1,400-plus) in Episode 3, "The Long Night" (the Battle of Winterfell), and over 900 in Episode 5, "The Bells" (the showdown at King's Landing). The work was shared among a dozen vendors, with the lion's share going to Weta, Scanline, El Ranchito, Pixomondo, and Image Engine. To illustrate just how daunting the number of effects were, in comparison, the entirety of Season 3 contained 800 VFX shots that spanned 10 episodes. By Season 7, the number hovered close to 2,000 across seven episodes. Due to this enormous workload, Bauer handled Episodes 3, 5, and 6, while Stefan Fangmeier (who assisted on sequences in Season 7) served as VFX supervisor for Episodes 1, 2, and 4. "The number just got so big that we had to divide and conquer," Bauer says. The VFX facilities did likewise, sometimes with multiple vendors working on the same shots and sequences. Yet, it's far more than simply a numbers game. The effects shots this season were complex and spanned the gamut from CG creatures and characters, to digital armies, to set extensions, a wide range of simula- tions, and more. " T he L o n g N igh t " GOT has had plenty of experience orches- trating big battles – for instance, the Battle of the Bastards. But for the Battle of Win- terfell, the directors and crew took things to a whole new level. The buildup is intense, and once the fighting starts, it doesn't let up until the Night King falls. And through it T he practical Winterfell set itself is relatively small, but it was greatly enlarged prac- tically for Season 8, with intercon- nected areas, stairs, pathways, and courtyards. In addition, there were two large greenscreen shoots: one for the upper battlement and a trench that was almost 100 feet in length that was set alight. "For 'Battle of the Bastards' (Season 6), we were out in a field for 20-some days, and all our work hap- pened using that footage. Whereas for the Battle of Winterfell, we had many kinds of situations that we had to match and extend, and we had many more full-CG shots in terms of what the armies are doing," says Joe Bauer, overall VFX supervisor. Weta extended the environments for Winterfell to support the smash- ing of the walls during the attack, achieved mainly with 2.5D projec- tions by the environment matte painter. The studio also did similar work for Dragon stone, adding a 3D model made with photogrammetry that highlights the rock detail and surrounding environment, and added simulated water around the coastline. HALF OF WETA'S SHOTS IN THE FINAL SEASON WERE FOR THE BATTLE OF WINTERFELL.