Resident Evil Requiem has kicked off the awards season by securing several major awards for itself, including the Ultimate Game of the Year given out by the Golden Joysticks. It was also the best console game of 2026 and won an award for the best trailer, while Angela Sant’Albano, who plays Grace Ashcroft, earned due recognition for her performance.
With RE9, Capcom spearheaded itself to the top of the gaming world, receiving a Studio of the Year award, among others, totaling seven accolades from the Golden Joysticks alone. More are bound to follow, not least because the one big game still remaining doesn’t qualify for most award shows anyway. Resident Evil Requiem is thus the supergiant bent on conquering every award out there, but one may yet escape its grasp.
I am talking, of course, about The Game Awards’ prestigious Game of the Year trophy, which to some extent stands on par with The Academy’s Oscars in our industry. Every year, one game and studio gets to take home the biggest win, and while I would love to see RE9 or The Blood of Dawnwalker developers walk down those steps holding a winged statue, I have a feeling that the chugging hype train building around GTA 6 might put a full stop on those dreams.
So far, TGA has held its ground against community hype, allocating most of the ultimate decision to the jury rather than the players, who, though they can pick their player choice award, still don’t have too much of an impact on who gets the Game of the Year accolade. Back in 2013, while it was still rather in its infancy, TGA did not give GTA 5 a GOTY award, and it actually snubbed Red Dead Redemption in favor of the rebooted God of War. So far, Rockstar hasn’t had much luck with Geoff Keighley’s show, but it also hasn’t had a game as hyped-up and anticipated as GTA 6 in its history, despite the gargantuan size of each of its IPs.
Whether Keighley and his show can withstand that onslaught remains to be seen, but I, for one, think that GTA 6 might have already been chosen for that silver trophy, and since we know for a fact that juries probably don’t play much of the games they ultimately settle on, I believe this one is already set in stone. And that, unfortunately, means someone has to lose and miss out, in this case Capcom’s fantastic set of 2026 heavy-hitters from Resident Evil 9 to Pragmata to Onimusha: Way of the Sword.
Just the way the cookie crumbles, I fear, but perhaps Capcom can still score some other awards. If, of course, it doesn’t end up beating the King at his own game.
