Game of Thrones S6 Is "Very Dark," But Not Like Last Year [SPOILERS]

This story contains Game of Thrones spoilers.

With Game of Thrones' sixth season set to premiere this Sunday, writer-producer Bryan Cogman has now shared some insight into what fans can expect in terms of tone. He tells Entertainment Weekly that Season 6 will be "very dark," but not on the level of Season 5, which he says was the show's darkest ever.

"Season 5 was about taking characters to the brink--and for certain characters like Stannis and Jon, destroying them altogether," Cogman said. "We left our central characters in huge moments of crisis and at their lowest points last year. All of them are now trying to rebuild their lives. Season 5 was in many ways our darkest. This season is still very dark, very intense, but it's very much a next act."

Cogman did not share any specific details, but teasers and promos for Season 6 have showcased some intense and foreboding sequences.

Also in the interview, Cogman shared that one of the benefits of being six seasons deep now is that the writing team can draw from the characters' past experiences more than ever.

"There are a lot of thematic and explicit callbacks to Season 1, and the seasons that preceded this one, and even to events that preceded them, in terms of the mythology," he said. "There's also a trend that began in Season 5 and continues even more so in this season of worlds colliding, with characters meeting in hopefully very unexpected ways. Seasons 2–4 were about the expansion of this world; Seasons 5 and 6 are about contracting.

"Characters who were rivals, and in some cases enemies, are being forced to work together, which makes for a lot of juicy dramatic tension," he added. "And then there's the obvious answer in terms of the size of the show. We say this every year, but it's true--this is the biggest season of Game of Thrones. It took me by surprise, just how big it is--and I helped write it!"

Cogman also revealed that Season 6 represented the first time that the cast got together for a table read before shooting began. This was done because the scope of the season is "so vast," Cogman said, and would thus benefit from read-throughs.

"We separated the read-throughs by storyline," he said. "We did a day of the Northern storyline, a day of King's Landing, a day of the East. Hearing the arcs play out isolated was hugely helpful. I remember thinking: 'Holy s–t, this is huge, how are we going to do this?'"

You can read EW's full interview with Cogman here.

Game of Thrones Season 6 premieres April 24 on HBO. A new clip was released today on Facebook and can be seen in the embed above. For more on Season 6, check out this roundup of news and videos.