Golden Joystick 2026: The 10 Games Fighting for Console GOTY (and Who Should Actually Win)

Award season has kicked down the door, and the Golden Joysticks — the oldest game awards on the planet, forty-four years young — just locked in their shortlists. Public voting across 21 categories shuts Friday 23 October at midnight BST, so your ballot box has three days left. Then the winners get announced at a ceremony in London on 11 November, streamed worldwide.

The big one, as always, is Console Game of the Year. Ten games made the cut. Ten very different games. Let's walk through them like adults who have been burned by hype cycles before.

The shortlist

Resident Evil Requiem
Pragmata
Pokémon Pokopia
007 First Light
Forza Horizon 6
Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave
Onimusha: Way of the Sword
LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight
Saros
Nioh 3

First things first: the field is stacked in the most entertaining way possible. You've got a survival-horror heavyweight (Resident Evil Requiem, with Grace Ashcroft leading), Capcom's sci-fi gamble (Pragmata), an IO Interactive James Bond origin story (007 First Light), a full-on samurai return (Onimusha: Way of the Sword), and Housemarque's next fever dream after Returnal (Saros). That's not a shortlist, that's a boss rush.

The surprises

Two names on that list have no business being there if you asked anyone a year ago — and I mean that as a compliment.

Pokémon Pokopia is the surprise hit of the year. A Pokémon game elbow-to-elbow with Resident Evil and Nioh for GOTY is exactly the kind of thing that would have gotten you laughed out of a forum thread in January. Pokopia doesn't care. It's here.

Big Walk isn't on the Console GOTY list, but it deserves a mention anyway: it's tied with 007: First Light as the most-nominated game of the entire awards, up there alongside heavy hitters in Best Audio Design, Best Indie Game, and Best Multiplayer. A game called Big Walk bullying the biggest studios in the room is the kind of plot twist that keeps these awards fun.

And poor Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave — a Nintendo tactics-adjacent series showing up in the GOTY conversation AND grabbing a Best Storytelling nomination. Tactics games don't get red carpets. This one earned one.

The one that's missing

Here's the funniest detail in the whole ballot: GTA 6 is nowhere near these awards. Not because it isn't good enough — the nominations only cover games released between November 2025 and late September 2026, and GTA 6 doesn't land until 19 November. So the most-hyped game of the decade sits out the race entirely. The Golden Joysticks will crown a champion knowing the real final boss arrives eight days after the ceremony. Brutal. Honestly? Respect to the calendar.

Who should actually win?

Alright, opinion time, since the press release won't give you any.

The safe money is on Resident Evil Requiem. Horror is having one of its best years in a decade, Requiem is nominated across multiple categories (including performer nods for Angela Sant'Albano as Grace), and public votes love a blockbuster they actually played. Requiem is the name your group chat already knows.

My heart says 007 First Light. A Bond game with Patrick Gibson and Lennie James attached, IO Interactive doing what they do best, and it leads the nominations field — this is the awards' own way of telling you something special landed. Bond in a video game, done right, is a licence to print excitement. (Sorry. I had to.)

But the pick that would make me genuinely happy? Saros. Returnal proved Housemarque can make a game that hates you in the most loving way possible, and Saros is their next swing. If the voters want to reward ambition over brand recognition, this is their vehicle.

And then there's Onimusha: Way of the Sword lurking in the middle of the list like a katana in the grass. Capcom brought back a dormant samurai legend in the same year it launched Pragmata. That's not a studio coasting. That's a studio showing off.

Your move

The Joysticks are the fan vote, which means the trophy cabinet of your taste gets to vote too. Cast yours at the official site (goldenjoysticks.com) before Friday night. You can also pick a free gaming ebook just for voting, which is the kind of bribe I personally respect.

Ultimate Game of the Year — the big overall crown — gets its own separate shortlist and vote starting 26 October, so this shortlist is only round one. We'll be watching. And yes, we'll have opinions.