Many are predicting that Grand Theft Auto 6 will trip to a straightforward win for Recreation of the 12 months in 2026, however some are surprisingly inserting their bets elsewhere. Followers have been ready for Rockstar’s subsequent entry within the GTA sequence for greater than a decade, and the developer has pushed the discharge date for GTA 6 a number of instances at this level. On condition that it’s slated to come back out in simply eight months on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Collection consoles, concrete details about the sport has been uncomfortably skinny aside from a spare few official trailers. In the meantime, in its relative absence, different contenders have risen to the forefront as potential winners for GOTY at this 12 months’s Recreation Awards.
Bets suppose Grand Theft Auto VI might be crushed for GOTY 2026
Grand Theft Auto VI has a 46% likelihood to win Recreation of the 12 months on the 2026 Recreation Awards, in accordance with a market on Kalshi (as of March 30). Whereas the much-anticipated sport is properly forward within the standings, it shockingly doesn’t have half of the whole bets. In reality, a number of weeks in the past on March 17, GTA 6 solely held 39.2% of the unfold, displaying how risky its place has been.
A number of notable rivals for GTA 6 embody Capcom’s Resident Evil Requiem at 14%, Pearl Abyss’s Crimson Desert at 10%, and Housemarque’s Saros additionally at 10%. Out of the three, Resident Evil Requiem is the least shocking with its excessive Metacritic rating of 89 (PSLS’s Shaan Joshi give it a 9 out of 10) and an overwhelmingly constructive rating of 96% from person evaluations on Steam. Releasing on February 27, the horror motion title broke data for the franchise with it promoting 5 million copies in simply 5 days, and in mid-March, Capcom revealed that it had exceeded 6 million items in gross sales.
By comparability, Crimson Desert has had a slow-burn strategy. Early evaluations and impressions for the open-world fantasy sport weren’t as excessive as Resident Evil Requiem’s, however Pearl Abyss has rapidly launched patches which have mounted many points with the controls and person interface. Many have pointed to its stunning, scenic, large landscapes with quite a few factors for exploration on land and within the sky. (As somebody who has already clocked 100 hours within the sport, I’ve been hooked.) Regardless of its flaws in storytelling, it’s rapidly turning into a darkish horse for GOTY 2026.
In what’s successfully a non secular successor to 2021’s Returnal, the third-person motion title Saros is a PS5 unique that mixes roguelike components with bullethell gameplay. First revealed in a February 2025 State of Play, Saros follows Arjun Devraj as he makes an attempt to seek for solutions about an off-world colony on Carcosa. The sport expects the character to die after which return to life many instances over, turning into stronger with every runthrough. It’s nonetheless early to say whether or not Saros, which is slated to launch in April 30, is worthy of a GOTY nomination, however in comparison with a number of the different video games within the wager, it would as properly be forward of schedule.
A lot of the different choices within the wager have an out of doors shot of successful over GTA 6: Management Resonant (4%), Fable (4%), Half-Life 3 (4%), Marvel’s Wolverine (3%), Slay the Spire 2 (3%), The Duskbloods (2%), and Phantom Blade Zero (2%). The remaining acquired lower than 1% of the unfold, together with Pragmata, Cairn, Marathon, and Onimusha Means of the Sword.
Once more, it’s nonetheless very early to speak about many of those video games, however Management Resonant needs to be within the dialog on condition that the unique 2019 title acquired a number of GOTY awards. The identical goes for Marvel’s Wolverine, which is ready to launch on September 15, given Insomniac Video games’ action-adventure prowess with its Spiderman franchise. We might anticipate their shares to rise, so to talk, as we see extra gameplay footage of each video games and get nearer to their launch date.
GTA 6 may take itself out of the operating for GOTY 2026
With the variety of delays that Grand Theft Auto 6 has already skilled, it will not be shocking if Rockstar have been to push it again once more and out of the window for the 2026 Recreation Awards altogether. Certain, it will be disappointing, however it wouldn’t be out of step at this level.
As a recap, the developer introduced in Might 2025 that GTA 6 could be pushed again a 12 months to Might 26, 2026, citing that it wanted “additional time to ship on the stage of high quality you anticipate and deserve.” Then in November 2025, six months after the second trailer, Rockstar revealed one other delay for the sport to its present launch date of November 19, citing that it will want “additional months” for sharpening. Whether or not it will occur yet another time is anybody’s guess, although we wouldn’t fault anybody for bracing themselves for one more delay (and a $80 value level).
What’s been worrying is the shortage of communication or updates in regards to the sport’s progress. In comparison with the leadup for Pink Lifeless Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto V, each of which took about two years between their first trailers and their official launch, the anticipate GTA 6 has been longer at three years (yep, Trailer 1 was revealed all the best way again in December 2023). Now we have but to see any in-depth trailers for the title, one thing that Rockstar tends to disclose within the months earlier than one in every of their video games come out. If we don’t see any of some of these trailers for GTA 6 by the top of June, followers ought to put together themselves for it to be presumably pushed to 2027.
