Resident Evil and Capcom sweep the Golden Joystick Awards 2026

Capcom was the biggest winner of this year’s Golden Joystick Awards, with Resident Evil Requiem alone taking the top spot in four categories, including Ultimate Game of the Year.

Awards season is upon us and while you can look forward to learning what’s been nominated for The Game Awards 2026 later this month, the UK’s own Golden Joystick Awards 2026 took place in London last night.

This is the show’s 44th year and, as a reminder, its winners are primarily selected by the general public. Considering the amount of top quality video games that have launched this year, there was no one obvious pick for the Ultimate Game of the Year category, unlike some previous years.

That means Resident Evil Requiem had a lot of stiff competition, including but not limited to 007 First Light and Pokémon Pokopia.

In fact, Capcom’s premiere survival horror won no less than four categories. Aside from Ultimate Game of the Year, it earned awards for Console Game of the Year, Best Lead Performer for Angela Sant’Albano as Grace Ashcroft, and even Best Game Trailer for its Evil Has Always Had A Name trailer.

It was a good showing for Capcom as a whole, since it walked home with seven awards in total, including Studio of the Year. Onimusha: Way Of The Sword, meanwhile, won Best Audio Design and Grace Saif, who portrayed Diana in Pragmata, won Best Supporting Performer.

Other multiple award winners include indie hit Meccha Chameleon (Best Multiplayer Game, Best Indie Game Self-Published, Streamers’ Choice, and Developer’s Choice) and Dispatch (Best Storytelling and Best Soundtrack).

One slight surprise was seeing GTA 6 not win the Most Wanted Game Award, with it instead going to The Witcher 4. With Rockstar’s game now just days away from launch, it seems to have been purposefully excluded from the category as it wasn’t even nominated.

Almost nothing has been shown of The Witcher 4 so far, which isn’t scheduled to launch until 2028. Speaking of The Witcher, the remaster of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt won Best Remake/Remaster.

The Critics’ Choice award, one of the few decided by a panel of judges, went to indie darling, Big Walk, which was nominated for six categories including Ultimate Game of the Year.

That’s some awkward timing, though, as developer House House is under fire after it recently admitted to using AI to assist with development; a fact that made Big Walk ineligible for the Independent Games Festival (IGF) awards.

The use of generative AI of any kind remains an extremely contentious subject within the video game space. Just last year, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the golden child of video games for 2025, was stripped of one of its Game of the Year awards after it was discovered to have used AI generated artwork.

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