The 5 Titles That May Contend With <em>GTA 6</em> for the 2026's Game of the Year Title.

A year ago, we pondered if anything could realistically outshine Grand Theft Auto 6 for the 2025's Game of the Year honor — "except for Rockstar's ability to complete it on target." As it turned out, it was exactly that that took Rockstar's much-hyped game from the equation, with postponements to May and, later, November 2026 paving the way for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's remarkable clean sweep at The 2025 Game Awards.

As a result, gazing forward to GOTY 2026, we are situated with a powerful sense of repetition. Once again, GTA 6 begins the year as the presumptive favorite to claim the ultimate prize. Once again, Rockstar's greatest adversary might be its own timeliness. Even though another setback at this point is less likely, it's undoubtedly still plausible, and with its announced Nov. 19 release date just squeaking into The Game Awards' usual eligibility window, it would require just a slide of two days or more to push GTA 6 into competition for the 2027 awards.

Yet again, GTA 6 looks extremely hard to defeat, but not entirely unbeatable. Rockstar's own Red Dead Redemption 2 was surpassed 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' earlier incarnation, VGX — by The Last of Us. Paradoxically, GTA 6's behemoth status is a paradoxical kind of liability, as journalists and awards committees will be eagerly searching for an attractive alternative storyline to latch onto in order to prevent a foregone conclusion.

So what different releases might stand a chance? Forecasting nominees this far in advance in the year is, frankly, a something of a fool's errand: the ecosystem of indie and smaller releases is very unclear, while AAA games often get postponed or fail to meet expectations, and various publishers (including Nintendo) have not yet announce their titles for the second half of the year. Nevertheless, there are at present a handful of 2026 releases that appear to be they will be serious contenders. Below are five that possess a good chance of being shortlisted together with GTA 6.

1. Control: Resonant

Remedy Entertainment's psychologically thrilling sequel is easily the top challenger to GTA 6's dominance. In fact, Remedy may well be the ideal Game Awards studio: It produces technically accomplished, visually striking, narratively sophisticated action-adventure games while functioning just adequately outside the industry mainstream to still retain the aura of an outsider. The original Control secured eight nominations and one win in 2019, while Alan Wake 2 challenged Baldur's Gate 3 a tight second in 2023, turning three of its eight selections into wins in the coveted Game Direction, Narrative, and Art Direction categories. After a breathtaking trailer debut at the 2025 Awards, Control Resonant is never to be overlooked.

2. Resident Evil Requiem

A new (or even a) remastered Resident Evil game is more likely to be nominated for Game of the Year than to miss out. This long-running series has an excellent recent history at The Game Awards — Resident Evil 2 was nominated for the highest award in 2019, Village in 2021, and 4 in 2023 — plus a reputation for dependable quality. It must be said, a win would be a considerably more unlikely proposition, but you can count on Capcom ending up in the conversation.

3. Wolverine (Marvel)

The Wolverine game from Insomniac is one of the biggest blockbuster prospects of the year, and in terms of production cost 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 polished Marvel games franchise is excellent at garnering lots of nominations at The Game Awards, and not as successful at transforming them into wins. Will the shift from Spider-Man to an darker character and (much) more violent action shift the odds in Wolverine's benefit? Possibly, and it will be Sony's flagship contender for the year, which pretty much ensures it a spot at the main event.

4. Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave

Nintendo is infrequently absent from the list of Game of the Year nominees. In the absence of a obvious idea of what its big 2026 game will be (a new mainline Pokémon and a 3D Mario game are both possibilities), Fortune’s Weave makes a compelling placeholder. Fire Emblem is a cult series, it's true, but it has been building steadily in both appeal and regard over the past few years, while its involved anime storytelling style and strategic combat get more popular and closer to the gaming center by the day. It would not be a shock.

5. Blood of the Dawnwalker

The expanding European voting bloc on the jury is more and more making its weight felt, especially when it comes to nominating epic, sprawling Euro role-playing games like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. Rebel Wolves' inaugural title is an ideal game to capture those votes and occupy this slot, especially given the Witcher 3 lineage of its developers — and its noticeable similarity 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 generally only nominates one indie game for Game of the Year — 2025's three of indie picks looks like a fluke — it also seldom fails to nominate one. It's nearly impossible to foresee what that game might be at this point, as the most successful 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 supported by the curators at Annapurna Interactive.
• Replaced: a highly anticipated cyberpunk adventure with a exquisitely detailed pixel-art aesthetic.
• Ontos: Frictional Games' mysterious follow-up to the Amnesia series (provided 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 successor, an whimsical retro Zelda homage (provided that the studio can finally finish it).

Further Challengers

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