At the 43rd annual Golden Joystick Awards, broadcast live from central London on 20 November 2025, Rockstar Games' forthcoming Grand Theft Auto VI claimed the Most Wanted Game category, beating a deep shortlist of high-profile upcoming titles. The Golden Joystick Awards, hosted by GamesRadar+ and powered by MSI, are the world's longest-running publicly voted video game awards, with over 21 million votes cast across the 2025 ceremony's 21 public categories (Loveridge, 2025; Dawkins and Loveridge, 2025). The Most Wanted accolade is uniquely positioned within the ceremony because, by the awards' published criteria, only games scheduled for release after the night of the show (20 November 2025) are eligible — meaning the category is a pure fan-voted barometer of consumer anticipation for unreleased titles (Dawkins and Loveridge, 2025).
The official winners list published by GamesRadar+ confirms GTA 6 as the recipient of the Most Wanted Game trophy for 2025 (Loveridge, 2025). Rockstar's sequel topped a sprawling 20-title shortlist that included Resident Evil Requiem, The Witcher 4, Black Myth: Zhong Kui, 007 First Light, Marvel's Wolverine, Subnautica 2, Crimson Desert, Kingdom Hearts 4, Saros, The Blood of Dawnwalker, Light No Fire, Exodus, The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, LEGO Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight, Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, OD - Knock, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy (Loveridge, 2025). The breadth of the field — encompassing PlayStation exclusives, AAA Western sequels, Asian blockbusters, and indie heavyweights — underlines the scale of public sentiment Rockstar overcame to take the trophy.
Notably, GTA 6 did not leave the 2025 Golden Joysticks with a single award. The game's second official trailer — released by Rockstar in May 2025 — also won Best Game Trailer, defeating the live-action Battlefield 6 trailer, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's "Live a Life Medieval" CGI piece, and announcement trailers for The Expanse: Osiris Reborn, Romeo is a Dead Man, and Rhythm Doctor (Loveridge, 2025). Two wins for a game that has yet to ship is rare and reinforces the cultural pull of the franchise even before launch. By contrast, the ceremony's headline narrative was Sandfall Interactive's Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which collected a record-equalling seven trophies including Ultimate Game of the Year, matching Larian's Baldur's Gate 3 haul from 2023 (Dawkins and Loveridge, 2025; Loveridge, 2025).
The Golden Joystick Awards have run since 1983 and are explicitly framed as the "People's Gaming Awards", with winners determined by global online ballot via GamesRadar+ and goldenjoystick.com (Wikipedia, 2025). This grants the Most Wanted result particular weight as a measure of grassroots anticipation rather than industry insider sentiment. Historically, Rockstar properties have performed strongly in this category — Grand Theft Auto: Vice City won Most Wanted Game for Christmas at the 2002 ceremony — so GTA 6's 2025 win extends a long-established pattern of Rockstar dominance in publicly voted "anticipation" categories (Wikipedia, 2025). With GTA 6 now scheduled for a 2026 release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, the trophy provides an early external data point on the title's commercial heat heading into its launch window.
For Rockstar and parent Take-Two Interactive, the dual Golden Joystick recognition — Most Wanted plus Best Game Trailer — functions as marketing validation ahead of one of the most-anticipated entertainment launches in history. Industry coverage framed the wins as confirmation that GTA 6 had not lost momentum despite an extended pre-release cycle, even as 2025's Game of the Year discourse was overwhelmingly captured by Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Loveridge, 2025; Dawkins and Loveridge, 2025). The result also positions GTA 6 as the presumptive frontrunner for major 2026 awards consideration, should the game launch on its current planned window.
Dawkins, D. and Loveridge, S. (2025) Golden Joystick Awards 2025: Check out the winners on our Steam page. GamesRadar+, 3 October. Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/goldenjoystickawards/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Loveridge, S. (2025) All the Golden Joystick Awards 2025 winners revealed. GamesRadar+, 20 November. Available at: https://www.gamesradar.com/games/events-conferences/golden-joystick-awards-2025-all-winners/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Wikipedia (2025) Golden Joystick Awards. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Joystick_Awards (Accessed: 14 May 2026).