The Game Awards to Reveal 2026 Nominees Next Week Ahead of ‘GTA 6’ Debut, PlayStation 5 Joins Livestreamers for December Show (EXCLUSIVE)

The Game Awards will unveil its 2026 nominees during a live special next week just two days before Rockstar Games launches “Grand Theft Auto 6,” which is overwhelmingly considered to be the show’s top Game of the Year contender.

In a live nomination special airing Tuesday, Nov. 17 at 12 p.m. ET/9 a.m. PT on YouTube and Twitch, The Game Awards host and executive producer Geoff Keighley will unveil the games, studios and creative talent nominated for this year’s honors, including Game of the Year.

Following the reveal, fans can visit TheGameAwards.com to explore the full list of nominees and cast their votes. The nominees are selected by a global jury of media publications and creator outlets from around the world, including Variety.

The 2026 Game Awards will take place at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles Dec. 10. Led by Keighley, the show will follow its usual format of mixing the presentation of its video game industry awards with world premiere new game announcements and live musical performances.

With the nominations not yet revealed, Keighley says he’s not yet sure how much Rockstar’s “GTA 6” will dominate the show, both in terms of accolades but also time spent talking about the game and featuring it.

“Every year is different at the show,” Keighley tells Variety. “You remember last year, ‘Clair Obscur’ did very well, won a ton of awards, and sort of took over the show in its own way as an independent game. And as an producer, you try and create a show that’s balanced, but you also are cognizant of, look, GTA is going to be a massive cultural moment for gaming, but also for all of entertainment. And how do you celebrate that? We obviously don’t know until next week exactly what the the nominations are and how many times they’ll be nominated. But yes, our hope is certainly that ‘GTA’ will be represented in the show. But also, it’s really important that we represent tons of other games in the show. There are many categories where ‘GTA’ is not even eligible, like the independent games, other spaces. So I’m sure ‘GTA’ will factor into the show, it has to and what Rockstar has put together is incredible and something to celebrate. But there’s a ton of other things to too, and certainly, on the announcement side, half our show really is these kind of announcements and future-looking things that are not ‘GTA 6.'”

This year, The Game Awards will stream on more platforms than ever, including first-time partners Disney+, Roblox and now, as Variety can confirm exclusively, Live TV on PS5.

In addition to the new platforms, the Game Awards will also be available on YouTube, Twitch, Steam, TikTok Live, X, Kick, Facebook and Instagram Live in the U.S. and international territories, along with more than 20 platforms in China, including Baidu, Bilibili, Douyin, DouYu, Huya, WeChat, Weibo and Xiaohongshu. Other streaming partners include CHZZK and SOOP in South Korea, NicoNico in Japan, Vidio in Indonesia, Now TV in Hong Kong, mewatch in Singapore, and BIGO LIVE and Likee across Southeast Asia.

“The goal with The Game Awards has always been to bring the power of gaming to as many places as possible,” Keighley says. “When we started the show in 2014, we started with what I call sort of a no-friction distribution policy, which is basically you bring the show to gamers on all the screens where they watch content. And back in the day, that was Twitch, YouTube and Steam. And in the past 13 years, there have been so many more entrants and platforms and ways to consume content. So we’re really, really excited this year that we have a number of big new partners.”

The 2026 Game Awards broadcast marks the first time an external awards show has been livestreamed on Roblox, which has previously hosted its annual Roblox Innovation Awards, as well as music experiences featuring The Rolling Stones, Billie Eilish and Stray Kids.

Ahead of the Dec. 10 show, fans can cast official category votes via The Block and on the night of the show, Roblox users ages 18 and older will be able to watch the show together in The Block, Roblox’s premiere virtual event venue. Fans participating with the show through The Block will be able to vote, interact and claim virtual merchandise, per The Game Awards.

As was the case when Amazon’s Prime Video signed on to stream the show last year, Keighley says these new partners including Roblox, Disney+ and Live TV on PS5 are “additive” and he still has no plans to license the show to one streamer or remove it from YouTube, where it’s available for free.

“That’s the other thing is that we’re not interested in doing exclusive deals,” Keighley says. “We’ve had lots of offers on moving to one platform, but our goal is always to be additive and bring more people into the family of celebrating video games.”

Executive produced by Keighley and Kimmie Kim, The Game Awards are directed by Richard Preuss. LeRoy Bennett is the creative director, and Lara Karchmer is co-executive producer.