AceShowbiz -

Winter may be over, but the war is coming on "Game of Thrones" this summer. HBO has finally announced a premiere date for the highly-anticipated seventh season of the hit series, along with an official teaser. The new season will bow Sunday, July 16.

The teaser doesn't show any footage from the seventh season, but features major house sigils crumbling to ash while the characters say in voiceover about destroying each other's house. But Jon Snow makes a point by saying that "there is only one war that matters." He continues, "The Great War. And it is here."

The announcement of the release date was preceded by a Facebook Live event that saw a large block of ice containing the release date slowly melting as fans commented "fire," which caused a flame to blast on screen. Hundreds of thousands of Facebook users were tuning into the streaming.

Speaking to ABC News while promoting his upcoming film "Brimstone", Kit Harington said, "[Season 7 has] so much more ambition. There are less episodes this year, so they spent more money on those episodes. So, the whole scale of it is up."

"Fear is for the winter."

Tune in at 2PM EST on the #GameofThrones @Facebook page: https://t.co/WusLWlZf9F #GoTS7 pic.twitter.com/n1EANYqvDR

— Game Of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) March 9, 2017