Resident Evil Requiem is the Ultimate Game of the Year at the Golden Joystick Awards 2026, held on November 11. Capcom’s survival horror sequel also took Console Game of the Year, Best Game Trailer and Best Lead Performer, and Capcom walked out with Studio of the Year on top. But look at the vote split and you’ll see this wasn’t a coronation. It was a photo finish.
What Happened at the Golden Joysticks 2026
The 44th Golden Joystick Awards were held in London, and the winners are picked by player votes, according to VGTimes. Resident Evil Requiem won the top prize with 17% of the vote. Phantom Blade Zero finished just one percentage point behind, and Crimson Desert came third on 15%.
That’s a tight race, and the full shortlist shows why. TheGamer’s list of Ultimate Game of the Year nominees included 007 First Light, Big Walk, Control Resonant, Crimson Desert, Dispatch, Forza Horizon 6, Phantom Blade Zero, Pokemon Pokopia, Pragmata, Resident Evil Requiem, Star Wars: Galactic Racer and The Blood of Dawnwalker. Twelve games, and the winner pulled less than a fifth of the vote.
Requiem’s haul looked like this:
- Ultimate Game of the Year
- Console Game of the Year
- Best Game Trailer, for “Evil Has Always Had a Name”
- Best Lead Performer, for Angela Sant’Albano as Grace Ashcroft, per Gaming Trend
Add Onimusha: Way of the Sword winning Best Audio Design, Grace Saif winning Best Supporting Performer for Pragmata, and the Studio of the Year trophy, and Capcom ends the night with seven awards, as VGTimes tallied up.
The Rest of the Winners Worth Talking About
Capcom wasn’t the only story. According to the full GamesRadar+ winners list:
- PC Game of the Year: Crimson Desert
- MECCHA CHAMELEON took four awards: Best Multiplayer Game, Best Indie Game (Self-Published), Streamer’s Choice and Developers’ Choice
- Dispatch won Best Storytelling and Best Soundtrack
- Critics’ Choice: Big Walk
- Best Visual Design: Control Resonant
- Best Remake/Remaster: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered
- Most Wanted Game: The Witcher 4
- Best Gaming Hardware: Steam Controller
- Best Early Access Game: Subnautica 2
- Still Playing Awards: Minecraft (PC and console) and Balatro (mobile)
The Crimson Desert win is the one that makes me smile. This site has gone back and forth on that game, from its rough launch to its comeback, and now players have handed it PC Game of the Year and a third-place finish for the big prize. That’s a real redemption arc.
MECCHA CHAMELEON is the other headline. Four wins for a self-published indie, including the Developers’ Choice award, is a loud statement in a year packed with big-budget releases.
Why Requiem’s Win Matters to Players
Here’s my take: Requiem deserved this, and the margin doesn’t change that. It’s been out since February 27, 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2 and PC. Capcom said it passed 5 million units by March 4, and by the end of June it had sold over 8 million. A February game holding attention all the way to a November vote, against fresher releases, says a lot about how much people still care about it.
It also confirms Capcom’s run is no fluke. The publisher was nominated across horror, action and a new IP in Pragmata, and it won in all of those lanes. For players, that’s the best news here. A studio getting rewarded for well-made, single-player games with a clear identity is a signal the rest of the industry should notice.
Still, the vote split is worth sitting with. One point separated Requiem from Phantom Blade Zero. We wrote about how Phantom Blade Zero sold 4 million in 72 hours, and that momentum clearly carried into the voting.
A Year With No Runaway Winner
Compare this to last year. GamesRadar+ pointed out that 2026 had no runaway frontrunner, unlike 2025, when Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won nearly every category it was up for. Even during the show, TheGamer described the Ultimate Game of the Year race as “too close to call,” naming Requiem, Dispatch, Control Resonant and 007 First Light among the favourites.
I’d argue that’s a healthy sign. A year where twelve very different games split the vote is a year with a lot of good stuff to play. Horror, a narrative indie, an open-world RPG, a Soulslike action game and a self-published multiplayer oddity all picked up major hardware. No single release sucked the air out of the room.
What to Watch Next
The Golden Joysticks are a player-voted show, so they’re a good read on fan sentiment but not the last word on 2026. Critics’ awards and year-end lists are still to come, and it’ll be interesting to see whether Requiem holds its lead there or whether Dispatch, Control Resonant or Big Walk, the Critics’ Choice pick here, pull ahead.
There’s also the elephant in the room. GTA 6 lands on November 19, after this vote was settled. However that launch goes, it’s going to dominate the conversation for the rest of the year. Capcom gets to enjoy this one first, though, and on the strength of Requiem, it’s earned the victory lap.