Yesterday, the official FAQ & Rules page for The Game Awards revealed its official criteria for all games in the running for its categories prior to the big show on December 10, 2026. It’s mostly stuff you would expect: a game must be in a finished state, not in Early Access, things like DLC and remasters are eligible for all categories, live-service games are eligible so long as they’ve had consistent updates this year, and so on.
In addition to all of that, though, there was a particular bit of legislation that caught the internet’s collective eye; the official cutoff date. According to The Game Awards’ official rules, all games submitted for consideration must be “made commercially available to customers on or before Friday, November 20, 2026, at 9 p.m. PT.,” extended out to November 30 for the Player’s Voice award.
As it would happen, this particular deadline has proven to be quite the boon for a particular high-profile release: none other than Grand Theft Auto 6, releasing on November 19, 2026, a single day before the cutoff. Everyone, brace yourselves, because The Game Awards 2026 are going to be positively fierce.
GTA 6 has Made the Cut...
