Beyond the headline trophies awarded at The Game Awards, BAFTA Games Awards, D.I.C.E. Awards, and Golden Joystick Awards, the Grand Theft Auto franchise has accumulated a considerable inventory of smaller — but reputationally significant — industry honours. These secondary accolades originate from outlets and ceremonies that, although less televised, carry real weight within the development community, the trade press, and consumer-voted recognition programmes. Examined collectively, they demonstrate the breadth of the franchise's critical and commercial standing across multiple awarding bodies and serve as relevant precedent for how Grand Theft Auto VI (Rockstar Games, scheduled for 19 November 2026) is likely to be honoured following release (Rockstar Games, 2025). Industry expectation, anchored in the unprecedented anticipation surrounding the title, has already produced pre-release recognition that mirrors the pre-launch sweep enjoyed by Grand Theft Auto V in 2012–2013.
Grand Theft Auto VI has already secured a string of pre-release honours that, while not Game-of-the-Year level, are meaningful markers of industry standing. The title won Most Wanted Game at the Golden Joystick Awards and Most Anticipated Game at The Game Awards in both 2024 and 2025 (Wikipedia, 2026a). It also won Best Game Trailer at the 2025 Golden Joystick Awards following the release of its second trailer in May 2025 (Wikipedia, 2026a). These categories — historically reserved for the industry's most-hyped properties — mirror the trajectory taken by Grand Theft Auto V, which won Most Anticipated Game at the 2012 Spike Video Game Awards prior to its September 2013 release (Wikipedia, 2026b).
The historical record for Grand Theft Auto V illustrates the spread of "second-tier" industry honours that VI is likely to attract. Examples include:
This pattern — major-show recognition flanked by trade-press, platform-holder, and community awards — represents the realistic ceiling of "Other Industry Honours" that Grand Theft Auto VI can reasonably be expected to convert at and following release.
Given the franchise precedent and the unprecedented anticipation reported around VI (Schreier, quoted in Wikipedia, 2026a), the following expected honours fall within the "other industry honours" category:
While these honours individually carry less prestige than the "big four" awards ceremonies, in aggregate they produce a comprehensive trophy cabinet that affirms a title's technical, narrative, design and cultural standing. For Grand Theft Auto VI, accumulating such honours will be commercially valuable, supporting long-tail marketing and post-launch DLC and online-mode promotion in line with parent company Take-Two Interactive's expectations (Wikipedia, 2026a). They also serve as critical-consensus signposts independent of consumer-voted popularity polls, which the franchise traditionally dominates by sheer install-base scale.
Game Developers Choice Awards (2014) 14th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards Winners. Available at: http://www.gamechoiceawards.com/winners/index.html (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
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Michael, C. and Taifalos, N. (2024) 'Streamer Awards 2024: All results and winners for every category', Dot Esports, 18 February. Available at: https://dotesports.com/streaming/news/streamer-awards-2024-all-results-and-winners-for-every-category (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Ray Corriea, A. (2013) 'Grand Theft Auto 5 goes platinum at Sony PlayStation Awards', Polygon, 4 December. Available at: http://www.polygon.com/2013/12/4/5174096/grand-theft-auto-5-goes-platinum-at-sony-playstation-awards (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Reuters (2013) 'The International Press Academy Announces Nominations For The 18th Annual Satellite Awards', 2 December. Available at: https://www.reuters.com/article/2013/12/02/ipa-award-nominations-idUSnPnDC9wvmD+161+PRN20131202 (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Rockstar Games (2025) Grand Theft Auto VI Release Date Announcement. Rockstar Newswire.
Rubin, B.P. (2013) 'Winners of the 5th Annual Inside Gaming Awards Announced', Machinima, 4 December. Available at: http://www.insidegamingdaily.com/2013/12/04/winners-of-the-5th-annual-inside-gaming-awards-announced/ (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Wikipedia (2026a) Grand Theft Auto VI. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_VI (Accessed: 14 May 2026).
Wikipedia (2026b) Grand Theft Auto V. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto_V (Accessed: 14 May 2026).