The Horror Game Awards will mark its fifth anniversary on Friday, November 20, 2026, with a sold-out ceremony in London and a live broadcast for viewers worldwide. The show begins at 7:00 PM GMT, which is 11:00 AM PST, 2:00 PM EST, and 8:00 PM CET.
Viewers will be able to follow the ceremony through the event’s official YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok channels, as well as through hundreds of co-streamers. That broad distribution matters for an awards show built around a genre with a particularly active streaming and creator audience: it gives viewers a choice between the main broadcast and creator-led coverage, commentary, and community chat.
Phil Dickens and Will Penkeyman will host alongside co-producer Ash Millman. The program will recognize horror games across 21 categories, while also using the stage for more than 20 trailers and reveals. Confirmed appearances include ILL, Sally Face 2, and Sker: The Bleeding Veil.
REANIMAL takes the nomination lead
Tarsier Studios’ REANIMAL enters the ceremony with 10 nominations, the highest total in this year’s field. Capcom’s Resident Evil Requiem follows with nine. Silent Hill: Townfall, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival, and Silver Pines are tied just behind them on eight nominations each.
Nomination totals are not awards, and they do not reveal how close individual categories may be. They do, however, show which projects will be present repeatedly throughout the night. REANIMAL is positioned as the most broadly recognized title in the lineup, while the cluster of games on eight and nine nominations means the major awards could be spread among several prominent releases.
The Game of the Year competition contains 16 games:
- The Blood of Dawnwalker — Rebel Wolves
- Clive Barker’s Hellraiser: Revival — Saber Interactive
- Directive 8020 — Supermassive Games
- Endacopia — Andyland
- Fatal Frame 2: Crimson Butterfly Remake — Team Ninja
- Heaven Does Not Respond — Rise Studios
- No Means Nothing — Bober Bros
- Offering App — Kesha White
- Project Songbird — FYRE Games
- REANIMAL — Tarsier Studios
- Resident Evil Requiem — Capcom
- ROUTINE — Lunar Software
- Silent Hill: Townfall — Screen Burn
- Silver Pines — Wych Elm
- The Skin Stapler — Tainted Pact
- Tenebris Somnia — Saibot Studios
The list puts well-known horror series, remakes, adaptations, and newer projects in the same top category. It also gives the broadcast a practical value beyond the final winner: for players tracking the genre, the nominees form a compact snapshot of the games being singled out across the past year.
Five new awards widen the conversation
Five categories are being added for 2026: Best Cosy Horror Game, Scariest Horror Game of the Year, Best Ongoing Horror Game, The Critics’ Choice Award, and Best Adaptation.
Each label focuses attention on a different way horror games can work. “Cosy horror” pairs unsettling or macabre material with a more comforting, inviting, or low-pressure atmosphere; its addition acknowledges that horror does not need to pursue a single emotional register. “Scariest” instead centers the immediate fear response, distinguishing it from categories that may reward a game’s wider craft, impact, or design.
Best Ongoing Horror Game recognizes a different model again: a game that remains active and develops over time rather than being judged solely as a fixed release. Meanwhile, a Critics’ Choice Award establishes a category explicitly framed around critical selection. Best Adaptation creates room to assess horror games connected to existing material without treating that relationship as incidental.
Together, those additions bring the total to 21 categories. They also indicate a broader view of horror gaming than one limited to a single type of scare or a single release format. The awards can now make space for games whose strengths lie in sustained support, tonal contrast, adaptation work, or a concentrated fright factor.
Trailers, reveals, and a mixed on-stage lineup
The more than 20 planned trailers and reveals are a major part of the show’s shape. Awards programs often serve two audiences at once: viewers who want to see winners announced and viewers who are looking for what may be coming next. With confirmed appearances from ILL, Sally Face 2, and Sker: The Bleeding Veil, the November 20 stream will carry both functions.
No details have been specified about the individual trailers or reveals beyond those confirmed appearances. That distinction is worth keeping clear: an appearance confirms that a game is part of the show, but does not establish the length, substance, or exact nature of what will be shown.
The presenter roster also brings together game developers, accessibility expertise, media voices, performers, and creators. Scheduled industry participants include Grzegorz Like, lead writer for Cronos: The New Dawn at Bloober Team; Tara Bunker of Supermassive Games; Ana Sopikova of Creative Assembly; Mazza Romero of Romero Games; Connor Rush of Project Songbird; Kirsten Riaa, voice actress for Hollowbody; and accessibility developer Li Usagi.
Media contributors scheduled to appear are Mel Ramsey, Rosie Caddick, and Harrison Abbott. The announced creator lineup includes SuperHorrorBro, Ryan Hollinger, Spherehunter, Emortalmarcus, Luigikid, Tangomushi, GhostArcade, and Myles Dyer of Flat2VR Studios.
That combination reflects how horror games circulate well beyond the developers and publishers making them. Writers and performers help create the work, critics and media figures contextualize it, accessibility specialists focus on how more people can engage with it, and creators introduce games to audiences through videos and live coverage. The event’s co-streaming plan extends that same ecosystem to the broadcast itself.
Why the accessible stream matters
A London venue can be sold out, but the official stream means the ceremony is not limited to the room. The simultaneous YouTube, Twitch, and TikTok presence gives audiences different ways to watch, while co-streamers can make the event social in a manner a conventional broadcast may not. For viewers, the choice is straightforward: watch the central feed for the complete program or follow a co-stream for live reactions and discussion.
The event is sponsored by Dead by Daylight, Miss Behaviour, and Creative Assembly. Sponsorship is part of the program’s production framework; it does not change the announced schedule, the number of categories, or the list of nominees.
For anyone planning to watch live, the essential detail is the time-zone conversion. The ceremony starts at 7:00 PM in the UK, 2:00 PM on the U.S. East Coast, and 11:00 AM on the U.S. West Coast. European viewers in Central European Time can tune in at 8:00 PM.
The awards arrive amid continued discussion about the people and practices that shape games, from developers and writers to the communities that remain attached to long-running experiences. For a separate perspective on that wider industry conversation, read this discussion of player attachment and RPG design.
On November 20, the immediate focus will be horror: which of the 16 Game of the Year contenders takes the top honor, whether nomination leader REANIMAL converts its strong showing into wins, and what the show’s trailer-and-reveal slate has in store. The full answer will arrive live from London.
