For the past few years, the Game of the Year race has been relatively open. Save perhaps for Elden Ring in 2022, which very early on in the year placed a stranglehold on the prestigious award, multiple games have been in contention for the title nearly until the last minute.
With Grand Theft Auto 6 set to finally come out between October to December later this year, winning GOTY seems to be a foregone conclusion and one award-winning studio director well aware of this.
In a Fall Damage video where Hazelight Studios founder Josef Fares responds to YouTube comments, he predicts that Split Fiction will win this year' Game of the Year award, but not if GTA 6 comes out as planned, saying, "I would really appreciate if we won Game of the Year again, but on the other hand, I'm a huge fan of_GTA. I think if that comes out it's gonna be really tough, and I want it to come out because I'm a huge fan."
Never one to be afraid to speak his mind and beloved among fans, Fares' words hold a ton of weight. His current run with Hazelight Studios has been nothing short of amazing, having released several critically acclaimed titles. After establishing his name with the release of Brothers in 2013, he founded Hazelight just a year later, eventually releasing A Way Out, It Takes Two, and now, Split Fiction. It Takes Two, in particular, won the GOTY award in 2021, with Split Fiction pulling in even higher review scores.
With that said, even though GTA 6 is the heavy favorite to win GOTY later this year, it isn't a given just yet. Aside from Split Fiction, the past three months alone have seen a handful of generation titles come out._ GTA 6 _will also have to outdo Monster Hunter Wilds and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II - and the year is far from over.
With Kojima Productions'Death Stranding 2: On the Beach coming out in June and a bunch more AAA titles possibly following suit, the 2025 GOTY title might be as heavily contested as in 2018 when Red Dead Redemption 2 lost to God of War. Of course, the 2025 GOTY award is still GTA 6's to lose and we doubt Rockstar Games pays enough attention to the chatter (if any at all) to want to delay their game for a better shot at winning what will easily be one of many trophies the sixthquel is expected to bag.
Officially,GTA 6 is still scheduled to release later this year with retailers in Switzerland and Malaysia already accepting pre-orders for the upcoming game. But we can't exactly rule out a potential delay, especially as one anonymous developer revealed that Rockstar has a contingency in place in the worst-case scenario.
