Fantasy has been one of the most prolific and beloved genres on television since the medium’s infancy, delivering several of the greatest genre series that the small screen has ever seen. The last few years have offered masterpieces like Arcane and House of the Dragon, and thankfully for people who love the genre, there are plenty of upcoming fantasy shows to look forward to in the coming months and years. These are series that are worth the utmost hype, surrounded by such buzz and sky-high excitement that it’s difficult to imagine them not being absolute hits by the time they come out.
Ranked here in order of how much hype they’re worthy of, the most exciting upcoming fantasy shows are proof that the genre is still more than live and well in the current day. Whether they’re charming low fantasy series bound to become gargantuan pop-cultural sensations in the coming years, or historic high fantasy series based on legendary books, these are shows which pretty much anyone and everyone who loves fantasy storytelling should add to the very top of their watchlist. For the purposes of this list, only shows that have been officially confirmed and green-lit (in other words, shows with an official IMDb page) will be counted.
6
‘Harry Potter’ (2026)
Releases on December 25th
Image via HBO
HBO
HBO
HBO
HBO
Image via HBO
HBO
HBO
HBO
HBOBack in 1997, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (published in the United States as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone) changed not only J. K. Rowling‘s life and writing career, but the entire fantasy genre. It’s still one of the best-selling works of fiction in history, and the influence that the whole Harry Potter book series has had on children’s and YA fantasy over the decades cannot be overstated. Fifteen years after the conclusion of the film series that further enshrined this as one of the most pop-culturally relevant stories in modern history, the world will be treated to an HBO show adaptation that will reportedly dedicate one season to each book in the series.
There are few fantasy books better than Harry Potter, and as such, it’s hard to imagine how HBO’s Harry Potter could be anything less than a generational smash hit. Even though Rowling’s reproachable views of and actions toward the trans community can never be omitted when talking about anything Harry Potter-related, and even though the show has already made itself subject to some other controversies before its premiere, fans’ hype for the series is nevertheless off the charts. Will the show be consistently successful enough to make it all the way to The Deathly Hallows? Only time will tell. But for now, fantasy lovers have plenty to be excited about when it comes to Harry Potter‘s first season.
5
‘Magic: The Gathering’
Release Date TBD
<<img src="https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/magic-the-gathering-1.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" />
Image via Wizards of the Coast</figure>
Back in 1993, businessman Peter Adkison asked mathematician Richard Garfield to create a portable, fast-playing card game that could be easily brought to game conventions and was relatively cheap to produce. Inspired by Cosmic Encounter, Dungeons & Dragons, and other unpublished game ideas that he had designed before, Garfield game up with Magic: The Gathering, a collectible card game where players take the role of powerful wizards trying to reduce their opponents’ life totals to zero. It has remained one of the most iconic and successful game franchises on the planet since the ’90s; so, if anything, it’s surprising that it has taken this long for a television adaptation to materialize.
Ideas for a Magic: The Gathering series had been floating around Hollywood since the early 2000s, but an animated show was first reported to be in production back in 2019. However, the project was soon enough confined to development hell. It wasn’t until late 2024 that Netflix finally announced that production on the series would start again under showrunner Terry Matalas of 12 Monkeys and VisionQuest fame, and now, there are remarkably few fantasy series that Netflix subscribers should be more hyped about. With Netflix having recently proven that they’re more than capable of producing elite-quality animated game adaptations like Arcane, fans can rest assured that the source material’s boundless world is in good hands.
4
‘Fourth Wing’
Release Date TBD
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Image via Red Tower Books</figure>
Rebecca Yarros‘ Fourth Wing is the first volume in her Empyrean series, and one of the best new adult romantasy books of the last decade. The story follows Violet, a physically fragile young scribe who’s forced by her cold military general mother to enter a deadly dragon-riding war college. There, she has to endure ruthless classmates, bond with powerful dragons, and uncover the kingdom’s dark secrets while falling for a dangerous rival. Though people who don’t typically like romantasy are unlikely to be converted by Fourth Wing, those who love the subgenre (or at least don’t much mind it) are in for the literary ride of a lifetime, full of high-octane action and engrossing character development.
It’s one of the most essential fantasy books of the 2020s, and mere months after its publication, Amazon MGM Studios confirmed that a TV adaptation was in production. Executive-produced by Yarros herself, as well as people like Michael B. Jordan, Lisa Joy, and Jonathan Nolan, the series counts with Locke & Key‘s Meredith Averill as its showrunner and Esther McGregor and Emilio Sakraya in its cast. Bringing a BookTok phenomenon of this caliber to life on the small screen is never a small task, but with such an unprecedentedly high budget and such a high-profile creative team behind it, it’s hard to imagine how Fourth Wing could be anything less than a delight for fans.
Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life
looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in
return.
You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and
somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right
thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.
- This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat,
fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends. - You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost
everything you touch is older than your entire family line. - The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives
every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight. - You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot.
You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where
you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is
finding out what is over there.
- One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who
each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together. - You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off
somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea. - The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land
harder because of that rather than in spite of it. - You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of
it.
You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The
Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the
people are where it all gets complicated.
- Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is
a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept. - You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the
Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer. - The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a
rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people. - You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story
got told wrong.
You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and
you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as
everybody kept telling you.
- Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners,
which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse. - You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for
something nobody thought to test for. - The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud
every time a prophecy tries to get in the way. - Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you
difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong.
3
‘The Stormlight Archive’
Release Date TBD
<<img src="https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/pjimage-8-10.jpg?q=70&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1" />
Image via Tor Books</figure>
Brandon Sanderson has dominated the fantasy literature space throughout the 21st century, confidently cementing himself as one of the most important, prolific, and influential fantasy authors currently writing in English. Part of his overarching Cosmere multiverse, The Stormlight Archive has become the writer’s flagship book series, starting with 2010’s The Way of Kings and still ongoing. We’re talking about five (soon to be more) of the most noteworthy books that are a masterclass in high fantasy writing, which made this year’s news that Apple TV had secured the rights for Sanderson’s entire Cosmere universe all the more hype-worthy.
This is, after all, a book series so inherently grand and cinematic that it lends itself perfectly to any sort of adaptation.
A Stormlight Archive TV series was the first Cosmere televisual project that Apple announced, and it’s rather unsurprising. This is, after all, a book series so inherently grand and cinematic that it lends itself perfectly to any sort of adaptation—and certainly one for television, which is the only medium vast enough to capture the sheer grandeur and epicness of Way of Kings and its sequels. Sanderson will reportedly be heavily involved with the project, expecting to write most of the first season himself, so fans of the series are confident that things will turn out just fine. And as for people who haven’t read the books yet, this show’s production should be more than enough time for them to dive into one of the best epic fantasy book series of all time.
2
‘God of War’
Release Date TBD
<<img src="https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/11/god-of-war-kratos.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" />
Image via Santa Monica</figure>
Starting with 2005’s God of War, the video game franchise of the same name follows a haunted Spartan warrior named Kratos, who wages a bloody war of vengeance against the Greek pantheon and later flees northward to bury his past and learn how to move on. Composed exclusively of some of the most epic video games in history, the God of War franchise has greatly evolved over the years, and soon enough, that evolution will culminate in a TV series created for Amazon Prime Video. The show will be based on the Norse mythology era of the original franchise, which is already more than enough reason for fans to be hyped about seeing how the creative team will handle the narrative.
Best-known for his award-winning work on the Battlestar Galactica 2004 remake, Ronald D. Moore will be the series’ showrunner. As for the cast, it includes Callum Vinson as Atreus and Dave Bautista as Kratos himself (following Ryan Hurst‘s departure from the role after an injury). This is already more than enough of a pedigree for fans to put their whole confidence in the team, and should also be a perfect excuse for fantasy gamers who somehow haven’t dipped their toes into the God of War franchise to finally play some of the greatest action games in history.
1
‘The One Piece’ (2027–)
Releases in February
<<img src="https://static0.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/screenshot-2026-08-20-at-4-29-38-pm.png?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" />
Image via Netflix</figure>
The 1999 anime series One Piece is one of the best anime shows of the ’90s, an absolutely legendary cornerstone of the medium based on the equally iconic manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. In it, a rubber-bodied young pirate named Monkey D. Luffy sails across the seas with a loyal crew to find the ultimate treasure, the eponymous One Piece, and claim the title of King of the Pirates. But as legendary as it undeniably is, if there’s one thing about the One Piece show that has been widely criticized for years, it’s that its slowly-paced 1,100+ episode run makes it a little too daunting and inaccessible for those not looking for such a massive commitment.
That is precisely why the show is being remade for Netflix next year, seeking to fix the pacing issues of the original, remove fluff, and make the story much more highly accessible for newcomers—whether they’re already familiar with the franchise or not at all. Fans can be hyped about a much-needed update to the somewhat-dated original, a show that will offer a fresh way to experience this epic story right from the get-go again. And as for newcomers who might have been intimidated by the original show’s length before, The One Piece will be the ideal entry point.
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