It’s not a huge surprise that HBO has renewed its ambitious drama series Westworld for Season 2. The show has captured the imaginations of fans by not letting us know the details of its game yet, as its story is peeled back layer by layer with every new episode. In many ways it’s reminiscent of True Detective‘s first season, where the show’s mythology started to overtake its story for fans online, as theories percolated (and often also went off the rails — but that’s part of the fun!)

Thankfully, Westworld isn’t built to be an anthology series, so what we like about Season 1 should carry over to Season 2 and beyond (and of course there’s potential too for it to expand into Roman World and Medieval World as well, which were additional spaces that were a part of Michael Crichton‘s movie).

As EW reports, Season 2 of Westworld will feature another 10-episode run, but fans will have to wait until 2018 to check them out. HBO’s programming president Casey Bloys said that the epic scope of the sophomore season will likely keep the TV theme park closed for renovations for more than a year. The presumably expanding storyline and the creative and practical challenges that entails likely contributed to the delay in renewing the show, one which has averaged 11.7 million viewers across all of HBO’s platforms; that’s more than Game of Thrones’ first season.

EW chatted with Bloys who confirmed that, as far as Season 2 goes, “they’re going to have to map it out and write the scripts” so a 2018 release is most likely. What that season will focus on is known to a select few at the moment, including the showrunners Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy. Here’s what Bloys had to say about their plans:

Jonah and Lisa great storytellers. I didn’t know exactly what to expect in season two. And what they came up with is as exciting, mysterious and as fun as season one. And completely original, as well.

Vague, for sure, but at least the direction Westworld has embarked on will remain similar. When asked about the second season for the sci-fi show, as well as the network’s recently renewed Divorce and Insecure, Bloys gave this reassurance:

We’re happy with the directions all shows are headed a the end of their seasons and into their second seasons. I wouldn’t look for any major changes.

We’ll update you for more on Westworld Season 2 as it becomes available, but for now, be sure to get onboard the first season of TV’s most talked-about new show before its season finale early this December. In the meantime, you can get caught up with our recent write-ups on the state of Westworld below: