Resident Evil Requiem won who won gamer of the year 2026 at the Golden Joystick Awards on Wednesday, taking the ceremony's top public-voted prize with 17% of the vote. It also left with three other awards, making it the night’s clearest single-game result.
Golden Joystick Awards and
The win came from a field that included Phantom Blade Zero, Crimson Desert, Control Resonant, and The Blood of Dawnwalker. With 22 of the Golden Joystick Awards' 25 categories decided by public vote, the result reflects a broad player base rather than a narrow critical split.
Resident Evil Requiem also won console game of the year and best game trailer. For Capcom, that is the kind of award spread that does more than add trophies: it shows the game landed across discovery, platform appeal, and the main vote that matters most on the night.
Angela Sant'Albano and
Angela Sant'Albano won best lead performer for playing Grace Ashcroft, the game's protagonist. That gives Resident Evil Requiem a performance win to go with its overall awards haul, and it places the lead role at the center of the game's awards profile rather than treating it as a side note.
Capcom was also named studio of the year, while Big Walk won critics' choice even after reports that the studio used generative AI in the final stretch of development. Meccha Chameleon split the specialist prizes, winning streamers' choice and developers' choice, and also took best multiplayer game and best indie game - self published.
Resident Evil Requiem
The result matters because Resident Evil Requiem is the latest entry in a series first released 30 years ago, and it won across public-facing categories rather than in one isolated lane. Winning ultimate game of the year with 17% means the title did not merely edge out the field; it carried enough support to dominate a large, vote-driven awards slate built to measure how players actually responded to the release.
That leaves one useful question hanging over the numbers: how close did the other ultimate game of the year contenders come to matching that 17% share? The answer would show whether Resident Evil Requiem won by a wide margin or by a thin but decisive slice of the public vote.
