007: First Light and Big Walk are the joint leaders in the Golden Joystick Awards 2026 nominations, receiving five nods apiece across a field that spans blockbuster console releases, self-published indies, ongoing games, expansions, gaming hardware and adaptations.
Big Walk’s showing is especially broad: it is nominated for Best Audio Design, Best Indie Game, Best Multiplayer Game, Best Game Trailer and PC Game of the Year. 007: First Light, meanwhile, has earned recognition for Best Soundtrack, Best Storytelling and Console Game of the Year, with individual performance nominations for Patrick Gibson as James Bond and Lennie James as John Greenway.
Resident Evil: Requiem follows with three nominations: Best Game Trailer, Console Game of the Year and Best Supporting Performer for Angela Sant’Albano as Grace Ashcroft. Also landing three nominations each are MECCHA CHAMELEON, Mewgenics, The Blood of Dawnwalker, Valheim and SAROS.
How and when Golden Joystick voting works
Public voting for the currently open categories is available through October 23. Ultimate Game of the Year, the ceremony’s largest prize, follows on a separate timetable: voting is set for October 26 through October 30, and its nominees have not yet been revealed.
That distinction matters. A nomination in a genre, platform or craft category does not automatically place a game in the Ultimate Game of the Year field. The later vote creates another stage for the titles that have emerged as the year’s biggest overall contenders.
Three awards will be decided by a jury rather than the public vote: Streamers’ Choice Award, Breakthrough Award and Critics’ Choice Award. Winners across the categories are due to be announced at the London ceremony on Wednesday, November 11.
One major release is already outside this voting window. GTA 6 is set to arrive after voting has closed, so it will not be eligible for this set of awards. That does not diminish the attention likely to surround the game, but it does mean the 2026 Golden Joystick ballot will be settled without it. For more GTA 6-related coverage, see our report on the Collector’s Box resale listings.
The leading contenders and what their nominations show
Big Walk is the only title at the top of the nominations list to appear simultaneously in audio, trailer, indie, multiplayer and PC Game of the Year categories. That combination puts it in several very different conversations. Audio Design generally recognizes the wider sound experience of a game, including effects and soundscape, while Soundtrack is a separate category focused on music. Multiplayer recognition, by contrast, places emphasis on the shared-play experience. A trailer nomination recognizes promotional work rather than the finished game itself.
Its Best Indie Game nomination comes in a particularly crowded ten-game field that includes Denshattack!, Esoteric Ebb, Mixtape, Mouse: P.I. for Hire, Order of the Sinking Star, REANIMAL, Sovereign Tower, Titanium Court and Valheim. Big Walk’s placement in PC Game of the Year also puts it up against Crimson Desert, Escape from Tarkov, MECCHA CHAMELEON, Mewgenics, STAR WARS Zero Company and The Blood of Dawnwalker, among others.
007: First Light’s five nominations have a more performance- and narrative-oriented shape. Gibson’s lead-performer nod for Bond and James’ supporting-performer recognition for John Greenway sit alongside the game’s Storytelling and Soundtrack nominations. Its fifth nomination, Console Game of the Year, puts it in a platform-wide contest with Resident Evil: Requiem, SAROS, Forza Horizon 6, Nioh 3, PRAGMATA, Pokémon Pokopia and more.
That split illustrates why raw nomination totals should be read with care. Five nominations signal broad recognition, but the categories measure very different things. A title can be a favorite for technical craft, for its acting, for audience-facing multiplayer design or for a specific platform’s annual award without those judgments necessarily producing the same winner.
Performance, storytelling and music categories
The performer fields have several high-profile roles alongside 007: First Light’s two nominees. Best Lead Performer includes Aaron Paul for Dispatch, Angela Sant’Albano for Resident Evil: Requiem, Anna Demetriou for Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy, Liam McIntyre for Marvel’s Wolverine, Patrick Gibson for 007: First Light and Will de Renzy-Martin for The Blood of Dawnwalker.
Best Supporting Performer features Frankie Kevich for CONTROL Resonant, Grace Saif for PRAGMATA, Lennie James for 007: First Light, Terry O’Quinn for SILENT HILL: Townfall, Troy Baker for Marvel’s Wolverine and Vic Michaelis for STAR WARS Zero Company. Sant’Albano appears in the lead category, despite Resident Evil: Requiem also receiving a supporting-performance nomination elsewhere in the nominations material; the listed individual nomination identifies her as Grace Ashcroft.
For Best Storytelling, 007: First Light faces Dispatch, Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, SILENT HILL: Townfall, The Blood of Dawnwalker and ZERO PARADES: For Dead Spies. The Soundtrack shortlist includes 007: First Light, Crimson Desert, Dispatch, Lumines Arise, Mewgenics and Mixtape.
Storytelling and performance are related but distinct. Storytelling concerns how the game’s narrative is presented as a whole; performance awards recognize the work attached to a specific role. The separation lets voters distinguish, for example, a standout actor from the broader writing and narrative construction of a game.
Indies, multiplayer and the PC race
The nominations give substantial space to independently made and self-published work. The self-published indie category includes Cairn, Fields of Mistria, MECCHA CHAMELEON, Mewgenics, Mina the Hollower, Perfect Tides: Station to Station, Phonopolis, Rhythm Doctor, The Incident at Galley House and Vampire Crawlers: The Turbo Wildcard from Vampire Survivors.
The dedicated self-published category is not the same as Best Indie Game. It specifically spotlights games released by their own creators or teams rather than through an outside publisher, while the wider indie category includes a separate group of nominees. MECCHA CHAMELEON’s three nominations cover self-published indie, multiplayer and PC Game of the Year; Mewgenics is nominated in self-published indie, soundtrack and PC Game of the Year.
Best Multiplayer Game brings Big Walk and MECCHA CHAMELEON together with ARC Raiders, Marathon, MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls and Valheim. Valheim also appears in Best Indie Game and PC Game of the Year, underlining its presence across the ballot. Readers following the wider PC market can also explore how PC gaming revenue in Japan has risen since 2021.
Best Audio Design nominations are Big Walk, Marathon, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Rhythm Heaven Groove, SAROS and STAR WARS: Galactic Racer. Best Visual Design includes CONTROL Resonant, Forza Horizon 6, Orbitals, Phonopolis, Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy and SAROS. These craft categories place sound and visual identity in their own lanes rather than treating Game of the Year fields as the sole measurement of achievement.
Other key categories on the ballot
The Best Game Trailer field is Battlefield 6 x Top Gun: Carrier Strike Cinematic Trailer, Big Walk’s Release Date Announcement, Cairn’s Launch Trailer, MOUSE: P.I. For Hire’s Official Launch Trailer, Prove You’re Human’s Announcement Trailer and Resident Evil Requiem’s Evil Has Always Had A Name. It is an award for the campaign material itself, not a proxy for which underlying game is best.
Best Early Access Game nominees are Dead as Disco, MENACE, skate., Slay the Spire 2, Subnautica 2 and WARDOGS. Early access means a game is made available before its full release, typically while development continues. The category therefore recognizes titles at a different production stage from most of the finished-game categories.
Best Game Expansion includes Cult of the Lamb: Woolhaven, DAVE THE DIVER – In the Jungle Content Pack, DOOM: The Dark Ages | Revelations, Quake: Dawn of the Machine, The Alters: Last Variable and World of Warcraft: Midnight. Meanwhile, Best Remake / Remaster nominees are Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced, Gothic 1 Remake, METAL GEAR SOLID: MASTER COLLECTION Vol.2, Star Fox, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered and Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter.
The distinction between a remake and remaster can be important in practice, but both are grouped together here. A remake generally rebuilds or substantially reworks an existing game, while a remaster typically updates an existing release. The category’s combined format asks voters to compare different approaches to revisiting older work.
Best Game Adaptation’s nominees extend beyond games themselves: Devil May Cry (Season 2), Exit 8, Fallout (Season 2), Iron Lung, Mortal Kombat II and Resident Evil. The Still Playing categories instead recognize games that remain active fixtures. Mobile nominees include Balatro, Genshin Impact, Honkai: Star Rail, MARVEL SNAP, Pokémon GO, Roblox and Wuthering Waves, while the PC and console field includes Apex Legends, Fortnite, GTA Online, HELLDIVERS 2, HITMAN World of Assassination, Minecraft, No Man’s Sky, Warframe and World of Warcraft.
Most Wanted, studio and hardware nominees
Most Wanted Game is the forward-looking category, focused on unreleased titles rather than the year’s playable releases. Its 20 nominees include Alien: Isolation 2, Black Myth: Zhong Kui, EXODUS, Fable, FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, KINGDOM HEARTS IV, Persona 6, The Witcher 4 and Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000.
The studio field consists of CAPCOM, Frogwares, House House, IO Interactive, Nintendo EPD and SQUARE ENIX. Best Gaming Hardware nominees are Logitech G PRO X2 SUPERSTRIKE, Razer Viper V4 Pro, Secretlab ATLAS, Sony INZONE M10S II, Steam Controller and Turtle Beach Stealth Pro II.
Whether voters are backing a five-time nominee, a long-running favorite, a particular performer or an upcoming game, the immediate deadline is October 23 for the active public categories. The Ultimate Game of the Year vote then opens October 26, before the awards are revealed on November 11.
