GOTY 2026’s Final Nomination Is a Battleground of 8/10 Games

One rung below this level, though — alright, maybe two rungs below, after the likes of Resident Evil Requiem and Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave — exists a mass of big games that were solid, impressive, and roundly satisfying, all of which got good-but-maybe-not-great reviews from critics. This is where we find all of 2026’s blockbuster hopefuls that aren’t Grand Theft Auto 6 on one side, or critical misfires like Marvel’s Wolverine and Crimson Desert on the other. There are loads of them. And they’re all pretty great.

007 First Light. Gears of War: E-Day. Star Wars: Zero Company. Pragmata. Saros. Onimusha: Way of the Sword. Nioh 3. Control Resonant. The Blood of Dawnwalker.

All these games are rated between 87 and 83 on Metacritic. That is a shade lower than the level of critical acclaim that is usually attached to games that are nominated for Game of the Year at The Game Awards. But otherwise, they are (mostly) all perfect Game Awards GOTY bait. They all have strong storytelling and production values, and (with the exception of Zero Company, a strategy game) they all sit somewhere on the continuum between action game, action-adventure, and light RPG. I call them the 85 Club, after their average score — a spot where game after game after game just kept landing this year.

On one level, this is disappointing. I’ve already complained that 2026 has yielded basically only one surefire GOTY nominee (Requiem) while we all endure the long wait for GTA 6. From another point of view, it’s fantastic. Here is a broad swathe of high-quality entertainment, in or near enough the gaming mainstream, that I would feel comfortable recommending to almost anyone.

The fascinating thing about this phenomenon, from a Game Awards punditry perspective, is figuring out what to do with all these games. Qualitatively, there’s a cigarette paper between them, and yet at least six of them are in realistic contention for a GOTY nomination.

If we assume that GTA 6 and Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time remake are bound for extremely strong reviews and automatic GOTY nominations — which doesn’t seem outlandish — and that Resident Evil Requiem and Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave are already locked in, two of the six nomination slots remain open. We can knock this down to just one if we think that Big Walk will secure a slot as 2026’s leading indie game, which looks increasingly likely after its strong performance in the recent Golden Joystick Awards nominations.

Image: Rebel Wolves/Bandai Namco Entertainment

I can picture almost any of the games I mentioned above in that last slot. Maybe not Nioh 3, which seems to have been forgotten about since its February release. Maybe not Saros, which is perhaps too niche. Maybe not Zero Company, because it’s a strategy game — although Fire Emblem is already set to break that taboo, and the Star Wars game has strong support among critics. It’s a credible dark horse (a topic I’ll return to).

It’s so hard to call. Of the games that remain, The Blood of Dawnwalker and Control Resonant look the most like GOTY nominees, but with Metascores of 83, their critical reception was on the soft side. It’s rare for a game with a rating of 83 or lower to be nominated (although the first Control managed it with 82). At the other end of the scale, 007 First Light has a strong 87, but a licensed game that was released in the first half of the year faces a long road back to critical relevance. Maybe there’s a path down the middle for the much-loved Pragmata, after all.

There are wildcards that could block any of these games breaking through, too. Crimson Desert is somehow still in contention, although its star is waning. Pokémon Pokopia is nobody’s idea of a GOTY contender, but it’s a sentimental favorite that critics loved. And Phantom Blade Zero looks set to join the 85 Club at the end of this month as, perhaps, its preeminent contender — that’s if it doesn’t score even higher.

All but one or two of the 85 Club will be out of luck. Quite possibly, none of them will score nominations. That’s a tough break; I’m sure that two or more of the teams behind these games had high hopes of being in the mix.

But GOTY nominations and Metascores aren’t everything. Remember when Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas hit 84 on Metacritic, famously denying the studio a bonus payment for hitting 85? Painful stuff. Guess what’s now arguably the most fondly remembered Fallout game of them all? Exactly.