Last year, we pondered if any release could realistically beat Grand Theft Auto 6 for the 2025 Game of the Year award — "barring Rockstar's ability to complete it on schedule." Ultimately, it was that very factor that removed Rockstar's much-hyped game from the race, with delays to May and, afterwards, November 2026 paving the way for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's historic sweep at The 2025 Game Awards.
Therefore, peering into the future to GOTY 2026, we find ourselves with a distinct sense of déjà vu. For a second time, GTA 6 kicks off the year as the clear favorite to win the top award. Again, Rockstar's greatest adversary might be its own punctuality. Although another delay at this stage is not as probable, it's undoubtedly still conceivable, and with its announced Nov. 19 release date only narrowly fitting into The Game Awards' usual eligibility window, it would need merely a delay of two days or more to push GTA 6 into contention for the 2027 awards.
Once more, GTA 6 seems remarkably tough to defeat, but not entirely insurmountable. Rockstar's own Red Dead Redemption 2 was beaten for GOTY by Sony Santa Monica's God of War in 2018, while GTA 5 was eclipsed in numerous awards ceremonies and GOTY votes — although not the Game Awards' earlier incarnation, VGX — by The Last of Us. Paradoxically, GTA 6's juggernaut status is a paradoxical kind of liability, as journalists and awards juries will be eagerly searching for an appealing alternative storyline to embrace in order to keep things interesting.
So what other titles may pose a challenge? Predicting nominees this far in advance in the year is, admittedly, a rather a speculative endeavor: the landscape of indie and smaller releases is very unclear, while AAA games often get delayed or underwhelm, and some publishers (such as Nintendo) have yet to unveil their lineup for the latter part of the year. Still, there are even now a small group of 2026 releases that seem like they will be serious contenders. Listed are five that have a good chance of being shortlisted alongside GTA 6.
1. Control Resonant
Remedy Entertainment's mind-bending second installment is arguably the most potent challenger to GTA 6's dominance. Indeed, Remedy may well be the ideal Game Awards studio: It crafts expertly engineered, graphically impressive, narratively sophisticated action-adventure games while functioning just adequately outside the industry center to still be perceived as an underdog. The original Control garnered eight nominations and one win in 2019, while Alan Wake 2 ran Baldur's Gate 3 a close second in 2023, turning three of its eight selections into wins in the highly sought-after Game Direction, Narrative, and Art Direction categories. After a spectacular trailer unveiling at the 2025 Awards, Control Resonant is far from being dismissed.
2. Resident Evil Requiem
A latest (or, for that matter) remastered Resident Evil game is more likely to be nominated for Game of the Year than not. This iconic series has an excellent recent track record at The Game Awards — Resident Evil 2 was nominated for the main prize in 2019, Village in 2021, and 4 in 2023 — plus a well-earned reputation for dependable quality. Granted, a win would be a considerably more far-fetched proposition, but you can rely on Capcom being in the mix.
3. Marvel's Wolverine
The Wolverine game from Insomniac is one of the largest commercial prospects of the year, and in terms of production cost and production values, likely one of the few that will be able to give GTA 6 a serious competition. Like Resident Evil, Insomniac's slick Marvel games franchise is great at accumulating lots of nominations at The Game Awards, and not as successful at turning them into wins. Will the move from Spider-Man to an darker character and (far) more violent action change things in Wolverine's benefit? Possibly, and it will be Sony's flagship contender for the year, which pretty much secures it a spot at the main event.
4. Fire Emblem - Fortune's Weave
Nintendo is seldom absent from the list of Game of the Year nominees. Lacking a obvious idea of what its major 2026 game will be (a new mainline Pokémon and a 3D Mario game are both options), Fortune’s Weave makes a compelling placeholder. Fire Emblem is a specialist series, it's true, but it has been expanding consistently in both appeal and critical reputation over the past few years, while its involved anime storytelling style and strategic combat get more mainstream and closer to the gaming center by the day. It would not be a surprise.
5. Dawnwalker's Blood
The expanding European voting group on the jury is increasingly making its influence felt, especially when it comes to nominating epic, sprawling Euro role-playing games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Rebel Wolves' inaugural title is an perfect game to attract those votes and secure this slot, especially given the Witcher 3 lineage of its developers — and its striking parallels to that 2015 GOTY winner.
Concerning the Indies?
The glaring omission in our list is that it omits an indie contender. While The Game Awards jury typically only nominates one indie game for Game of the Year — 2025's three of indie picks appears to be a exception — it also seldom fails to nominate one. It's almost impossible to foresee what that game might be at this point, as the biggest indie games of each year often come out of the blue, but a few potential candidates would be:
- Mixtape: a music-driven, nostalgic road trip of a game supported by the curators at Annapurna Interactive.
- Replaced: a long-awaited cyberpunk adventure with a beautifully detailed pixel-art visual style.
- Ontos: Frictional Games' mysterious follow-up to the Amnesia series (if it's not overly horrifying).
- Slay the Spire 2: follow-up to the wildly popular roguelike deckbuilder (but it might not make it out of early access in 2026).
- Mina the Hollower: Yacht Club Games' Shovel Knight follow-up, an charming retro Zelda homage (provided that the studio can manage to finish it).
Further Challengers
- Gears of War: E-Day: One of two huge franchise reboots from Xbox Game Studios in 2026, E-Day will have to demonstrate that this decidedly 2000s series is still pertinent.
- Fable: After
