The world’s biggest public-voted games awards, the Golden Joystick Awards, returns for its 44th year on Wednesday, 11th November at Troxy, London. You can book your tables and tickets here.
The Golden Joystick Awards are held in special regard because they are voted for by the people who buy and play games. Every year, millions of fans show their support for their favourite games, developers, publishers and personalities of the last 12 months. The final shortlist will be announced on 25th September, with voting due to commence on the same day.
To nominate your game to be considered to be part of the shortlist, please register below and then click continue to complete our online nomination form.
The deadline for nominations is 28th August at 10am PDT/ 1pm EDT/ 6pm BST
CRITERIA FOR NOMINATION:
- To be eligible for core voting across 22 categories, the game must have been released between 1st November 2025 and 25th September 2026.
- Exceptions are sometimes made for games that release early in the public voting window, which might have already been extensively played or tested by our judges (for example, if we received a copy weeks earlier for an embargoed review)
- Ongoing / online games which launched before this period are eligible for the ‘Still Playing’ and ‘Best Game Expansion’ categories.
- Games set for release after 11th November 2026 will be eligible for the Most Wanted award.
- Games released between 8th November 2025 and 25th October 2026 will be considered for Ultimate Game of the Year.
- Exceptions are sometimes made for games that release early in the Ultimate Game of the Year voting window (e.g. 27th October 2026), which might have already been extensively played or tested by our judges (for example, if we received a copy weeks earlier for an embargoed review).
- Games released between 20th November 2025 and 11th November 2026 will be considered for our 2026 critically selected categories.