Many are predicting that Grand Theft Auto 6 will ride to an easy win for Game of the Year in 2026, but some are surprisingly placing their bets elsewhere. Fans have been waiting for Rockstar’s next entry in the GTA series for more than a decade, and the developer has pushed the release date for GTA 6 several times at this point. Given that it’s slated to come out in just eight months on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series consoles, concrete information about the game has been uncomfortably thin apart from a spare few official trailers. Meanwhile, in its relative absence, other contenders have risen to the forefront as potential winners for GOTY at this year’s Game Awards.
Bets think Grand Theft Auto VI could be beaten for GOTY 2026
Grand Theft Auto VI has a 46% chance to win Game of the Year at the 2026 Game Awards, according to a market on Kalshi (as of March 30). While the much-anticipated game is well ahead in the standings, it shockingly doesn’t have half of the total bets. In fact, several weeks ago on March 17, GTA 6 only held 39.2% of the spread, showing how volatile its position has been.
Several notable competitors for GTA 6 include Capcom’s Resident Evil Requiem at 14%, Pearl Abyss’s Crimson Desert at 10%, and Housemarque’s Saros also at 10%. Out of the three, Resident Evil Requiem is the least surprising with its high Metacritic score of 89 (PSLS’s Shaan Joshi give it a 9 out of 10) and an overwhelmingly positive score of 96% from user reviews on Steam. Releasing on February 27, the horror action title broke records for the franchise with it selling five million copies in just five days, and in mid-March, Capcom revealed that it had exceeded 6 million units in sales.
By comparison, Crimson Desert has had a slow-burn approach. Early reviews and impressions for the open-world fantasy game were not as high as Resident Evil Requiem’s, but Pearl Abyss has quickly released patches that have fixed many issues with the controls and user interface. Many have pointed to its beautiful, scenic, massive landscapes with numerous points for exploration on land and in the sky. (As someone who has already clocked 100 hours in the game, I’ve been hooked.) Despite its flaws in storytelling, it’s quickly becoming a dark horse for GOTY 2026.
In what is effectively a spiritual successor to 2021’s Returnal, the third-person action title Saros is a PS5 exclusive that combines roguelike elements with bullethell gameplay. First revealed in a February 2025 State of Play, Saros follows Arjun Devraj as he attempts to search for answers about an off-world colony on Carcosa. The game expects the character to die and then return to life many times over, becoming stronger with each runthrough. It’s still early to say whether Saros, which is slated to release in April 30, is worthy of a GOTY nomination, but compared to some of the other games in the bet, it might as well be ahead of schedule.
Most of the other options in the bet have an outside shot of winning over GTA 6: Control 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 rest received less than 1% of the spread, including Pragmata, Cairn, Marathon, and Onimusha Way of the Sword.
Again, it’s still very early to talk about many of these games, but Control Resonant should be in the conversation given that the original 2019 title received multiple GOTY awards. The same goes for Marvel’s Wolverine, which is set to release on September 15, given Insomniac Games’ action-adventure prowess with its Spiderman franchise. We would anticipate their stocks to rise, so to speak, as we see more gameplay footage of both games and get closer to their release date.
GTA 6 could take itself out of the running for GOTY 2026
With the number of delays that Grand Theft Auto 6 has already experienced, it would not be surprising if Rockstar were to push it back again and out of the window for the 2026 Game Awards altogether. Sure, it would be disappointing, but it wouldn’t be out of step at this point.
As a recap, the developer announced in May 2025 that GTA 6 would be pushed back a year to May 26, 2026, citing that it needed “extra time to deliver at the level of quality you expect and deserve.” Then in November 2025, six months after the second trailer, Rockstar revealed another delay for the game to its current release date of November 19, citing that it would need “extra months” for polishing. Whether this will happen one more time is anyone’s guess, though we wouldn’t fault anyone for bracing themselves for another delay (and a $80 price point).
What’s been worrying is the lack of communication or updates about the game’s progress. Compared to the leadup for Red Dead Redemption 2 and Grand Theft Auto V, both of which took about two years between their first trailers and their official release, the wait for GTA 6 has been longer at three years (yep, Trailer 1 was revealed all the way back in December 2023). We have yet to see any in-depth trailers for the title, something that Rockstar tends to reveal in the months before one of their games come out. If we don’t see any of these types of trailers for GTA 6 by the end of June, fans should prepare themselves for it to be possibly pushed to 2027.
