GTA 6 Is Officially Eligible To Win Game Of The Year At The Game Awards

The Game Awards Cutoff Date Is, Conveniently, The Day After GTA 6 Arrives Published Oct 15, 2026, 8:25 AM EDT Josh Coulson is an editor at TheGamer covering breaking news on everything from colorful platformers to the latest Lego sets. Primarily a news writer since 2018, Josh has covered just about every major game from the past decade. Now an editor, their focus has shifted to being the leading affiliate expert at the site, building relationships between TheGamer and global brands including Mattel, Funko, and The Pokemon Company. GTA 6 will be released on November 19, 2026. After several long-term delays, there is no stopping this train now, and the game will almost certainly not see its release date move again. That means, with the eligibility window now confirmed, GTA 6 will officially be in the running to be crowned 2026’s Game of the Year. GTA 6 Makes The Cut Spotted on The Game Awards’ FAQ page, it has been revealed that the eligibility window for GOTY nominations will officially slam shut on November 20, 2026. “Games must be made commercially available to customers on or before Friday, November 20, 2026, at 9 pm PT,” the updated section for 2026 reads. That’s rather fortuitous for GTA 6 and the good people at Rockstar, as at 9 pm PT on November 20, the game will have been commercially available for a little more than 24 hours. Cutting it fine, but there it is in black and white. Not just confirmation that GTA 6 will be in the running, but a decision that means it will almost certainly be among the nominees, and if it’s even close to comparable to its predecessors, be crowned 2026’s GOTY. The Game Awards, as we know them today, began in 2014, which means they didn't exist the last time a new GTA game was released. Whether or not GTA 6 would make it in under the TGA wire has been a point of discussion ever since Rockstar moved its release date to November 19. Some spun conspiracy theories that Geoff Keighley would make an exception, holding the eligibility window open a little longer than usual so that GTA 6 could squeeze through. Intentional, Or Business As Usual? Rockstar Those conspiracy theorists have been proven right, or have they? The eligibility window for Game Awards nominations is usually open until around the same time each year. In 2024, anything released up until November 22 beat the cutoff, and last year the date was November 21. However, in 2023, GTA 6 would not have scraped by, as games nominated had to have been released by November 17. The date jumping around means that, unless Keighley admits he wanted GTA 6 to be a part of the TGA conversation because of how big of a release it will be for the entire industry, we can never know for sure when the cutoff would have been if it wasn’t releasing on November 19. You might also question whether a game that releases on November 19 being nominated for Game of the Year on November 20 is really fair, especially a game as big as GTA 6. Rockstar has suggested its story alone will take, on average, 80 hours to play through. There, quite literally, won’t be enough hours to do that between its release and the TGA eligibility window closing. The thing is, there’s a chance those responsible for voting on Game of the Year might have been playing GTA 6 for a while by then. There’s still no word on what Rockstar has planned for GTA 6 reviews, if there are any plans at all. However, if it does plan to let outlets review the game, whether it be via review codes or an organized, in-house event, there’s a chance the people casting GOTY votes will have spent a lot more than 80 hours with the game by November 20. Systems Released November 19, 2026 ESRB Rating Pending - Likely Mature 17+ Developer(s) Rockstar Games Publisher(s) Rockstar Games Engine Rockstar Advanced Game Engine (RAGE) Genre(s) Action, Adventure