The 44th Annual Golden Joystick Awards, presented by Pot Noodle, aired tonight and honored games and people who changed gaming between late 2025 and 2026. Resident Evil Requiem took home several honors for the night, including Ultimate Game of the Year, and its publisher Capcom took home three others, including Studio of the Year.
Other winners for the night including sleeper indie hit Meccha Chameleon, which took home four awards (including two of the three critically chosen awards); and Dispatch, which won two. Other notable winners for the night include The Witcher 4, which won Most Wanted Game.
Grand Theft Auto VI missed the cut-off for any of the categories, and it also won the previous award for Most Wanted in 2025. It’s likely the game will be nominated for many categories in the 2027 awards, as it’ll fall within the nomination period for that ceremony.
Before the awards began, host Alix Wilton Regan said a few words in support of the closed studio BioWare. Regan played several characters, including one of the playable characters in Dragon Age: Inquisition and Samantha Traynor in Mass Effect 3. She noted that, while BioWare is one of many such unfortunate studios, its closure hit her very hard. “So many of us watching tonight stand on their extraordinary shoulders.”
In addition to the heartfelt tribute to the lost studio, there’s somethin melancholic about Doom: The Dark Ages winning best game expansion, given how many staffers at Id Software no longer have jobs following Xbox’s rinsing of its studio system earlier this year.
Other notable winners include the legally fraught Subnautica 2, which one for Best Early Access Game; and Grace Saif, who won Best Supporting Performer for her memorable turn as the adorable robot Diana in Pragmata. Pearl Abyss’s Crimson Desert also won PC Game of the Year.
Here’s a full list of the award winners:
- Ultimate Game of the Year: Resident Evil Requiem (public vote)
- Best Storytelling: Dispatch (public vote)
- Best Audio Design: Onimusha: Way of the Sword (public vote)
- Best Multiplayer Game: MECCHA CHAMELEON (public vote)
- Best Visual Design: CONTROL Resonant (public vote)
- Best Game Expansion: DOOM: The Dark Ages (public vote)
- Best Indie Game Self-Published: MECCHA CHAMELEON (public vote)
- Best Indie Game: Valheim (public vote)
- Best Gaming Hardware: Steam Controller (public vote)
- Studio of the Year: Capcom (public vote)
- Best Early Access Game: Subnautica 2 (public vote)
- Best Soundtrack: Dispatch (public vote)
- Still Playing, Mobile: Balatro (public vote)
- Still Playing, Consoles & PC: Minecraft (public vote)
- Streamers’ Choice: MECCHA CHAMELEON (critically chosen)
- Best Game Trailer: Resident Evil Requiem – Evil Has Always Had A Name (public vote)
- Best Remake / Remaster: The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered (public vote)
- Developers’ Choice: MECCHA CHAMELEON (critically chosen)
- Best Game Adaptation: Iron Lung (public vote)
- Best Lead Performer: Angela Sant’Albano, Grace Ashcroft, Resident Evil Requiem (public vote)
- Best Supporting Performer: Grace Saif, Diana, PRAGMATA (public vote)
- PC Game of the Year: Crimson Desert (public vote)
- Console Game of the Year: Resident Evil Requiem (public vote)
- Critics’ Choice: Big Walk (critically chosen)
- Most Wanted Game: The Witcher 4 (public vote)