The Five Releases That May Contend With <em>GTA 6</em> for the 2026's Game of the Year Prize.

A year ago, we wondered if any release could possibly defeat Grand Theft Auto 6 for the 2025 Game of the Year award — "aside from Rockstar's capability to finish it on schedule." In the end, it was precisely that that removed Rockstar's much-hyped game from the running, with postponements to May and, later, November 2026 opening the door for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's unprecedented dominance at The 2025 Game Awards.

Therefore, peering into the future to GOTY 2026, we are left with a strong sense of familiarity. Yet again, GTA 6 starts the year as the obvious favorite to claim the highest honor. Again, Rockstar's greatest challenge might be its own punctuality. While another setback at this stage is more improbable, it's undoubtedly still plausible, and with its announced Nov. 19 release date only narrowly fitting into The Game Awards' typical eligibility window, it would require just a delay of 48 hours or more to send GTA 6 into contention for the 2027 awards.

Yet again, GTA 6 appears incredibly tough to beat, but not entirely impossible. Rockstar's own Red Dead Redemption 2 was edged out for GOTY by Sony Santa Monica's God of War in 2018, while GTA 5 was outshone in numerous awards ceremonies and GOTY votes — except perhaps at the Game Awards' forerunner, VGX — by The Last of Us. Paradoxically, GTA 6's juggernaut status is a seemingly contradictory kind of weakness, as journalists and awards committees will be eagerly searching for an attractive alternative storyline to latch onto in order to keep things interesting.

So what different releases may be in contention? Predicting nominees this early in the year is, frankly, a rather a risky business: the terrain of indie and smaller releases is largely murky, while larger games commonly get pushed back or fail to meet expectations, and certain publishers (such as Nintendo) have still not unveil their titles for the latter part of the year. Still, there are at present a handful of 2026 releases that appear to be they will be strong contenders. Listed are five that have a strong chance of being nominated alongside GTA 6.

1. Control Resonant

Remedy Entertainment's mind-bending sequel is arguably the strongest challenger to GTA 6's hegemony. Truly, Remedy might be the ideal Game Awards studio: It produces highly polished, graphically impressive, complexly plotted action-adventure games while operating just sufficiently outside the industry mainstream to still feel like an dark horse. The original Control secured eight nominations and one win in 2019, while Alan Wake 2 pushed Baldur's Gate 3 a close second in 2023, transforming three of its eight nominations into wins in the highly sought-after Game Direction, Narrative, and Art Direction categories. After a stunning trailer reveal at the 2025 Awards, Control Resonant is never to be overlooked.

2. Requiem: Resident Evil

A fresh (or even a) remade Resident Evil game is stands a better chance to be nominated for Game of the Year than to be absent. This long-running series has an sterling recent track record at The Game Awards — Resident Evil 2 was nominated for the top honor in 2019, Village in 2021, and 4 in 2023 — in addition to a well-earned reputation for reliable quality. It must be said, a win would be a much more unlikely proposition, but you can rely on Capcom being in the conversation.

3. Wolverine (Marvel)

The Wolverine game from Insomniac is one of the most significant blockbuster prospects of the year, and in terms of budget and production values, probably one of the handful that will be able to give GTA 6 a close contest. Similar to Resident Evil, Insomniac's high-octane Marvel games franchise is great at garnering lots of nominations at The Game Awards, and weaker at turning them into wins. Will the shift from Spider-Man to an edgier character and (significantly) more visceral action shift the odds in Wolverine's benefit? Maybe, and it will be Sony's primary contender for the year, which pretty much guarantees it a spot at the table.

4. Fire Emblem - Fortune's Weave

Nintendo is infrequently absent from the list of Game of the Year nominees. In the absence of a clear idea of what its big 2026 game will be (a new core Pokémon and a 3D Mario game are both possibilities), Fortune’s Weave makes a viable placeholder. Fire Emblem is a specialist series, it's true, but it has been expanding steadily in both appeal and regard over the past few years, while its detailed anime storytelling style and tactical combat get more mainstream and closer to the gaming mainstream by the day. It would not be a surprise.

5. The Blood of Dawnwalker

The expanding European voting bloc on the jury is more and more making its weight felt, particularly when it comes to nominating large-scale, ambitious Euro role-playing games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Rebel Wolves' inaugural title is an ideal game to attract those votes and secure this slot, especially given the Witcher 3 lineage of its developers — and its noticeable parallels to that 2015 GOTY winner.

Concerning the Indies?

The flaw in our list is that it lacks an indie contender. While The Game Awards jury usually only nominates one indie game for Game of the Year — 2025's three of indie picks appears to be a fluke — it also hardly ever fails to nominate one. It's almost impossible to predict what that game might be at this point, as the breakout indie games of each year often appear from nowhere, but a few likely candidates would be:

• Mixtape: a rhythm-based, sentimental road trip of a game backed by the curators at Annapurna Interactive.
• Replaced: a long-awaited cyberpunk adventure with a exquisitely detailed pixel-art visual style.
• Ontos: Frictional Games' mysterious follow-up to the Amnesia series (assuming it's not overly horrifying).
• Slay the Spire 2: follow-up to the immensely popular roguelike deckbuilder (but it may not make it out of early access in 2026).
• Mina the Hollower: Yacht Club Games' Shovel Knight follow-up, an charming retro Zelda tribute (if the studio can manage to finish it).

Further Challengers

• Gears of War: E-Day: One of two major franchise returns from Xbox Game Studios in 2026, E-Day will have to prove that this quintessentially 2000s series is still meaningful.
• Fable: After