You might think that Grand Theft Auto 6 is the only upcoming game anyone is thinking about. However, it came incredibly close to losing the Most Wanted award to Golden Joysticks with The Witcher 4.
The Golden Joysticks were among the first to hand out their 2025 awards, unsurprisingly crowning Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 as Game of the Year. It's also no surprise that GTA 6 took home the Most Wanted Game award, although it was a much closer affair than the GOTY vote, which Expedition 33 won by a landslide.
The Witcher 4 almost stole the most coveted Golden Joysticks award from GTA 6
More than 21 million people voted in 22 categories to determine the winners of this year's Golden Joysticks Awards, and now a breakdown of how those votes were cast in each category has been shared. Most would have expected GTA 6 to win by a goddamn amount, but with just 18.03 percent of the vote, it only managed to slip behind The Witcher 4.
CD Projekt Red's sequel to Wild Hunt is even more anticipated than anyone could imagine based on the votes cast for this particular award. 16.68 percent of the vote for the Ciri-led sequel, which means it lost to the Rockstar juggernaut by less than two percent.
GTA 6 now has something in common with Cyberpunk 2077 – both have won 'Most Wanted' at the Golden Joystick Awards twice in a row
GTA 6, Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher 3 are the only games that have accomplished this feat.
Between GTA 5 continuing to sell five million copies every quarter – now up to 220 million in total – and the chaos surrounding its latest delay, you'd think no announced game would even come close to GTA 6 in the polls like this one. Especially since we've seen very little of The Witcher 4 and unlike GTA 6, CDPR's next big release doesn't even have a release date.
There's more to Triple-A Horizon than just GTA 6
But apparently even without a release date and CDPR's current development activity suggesting we won't get another Witcher game until at least 2027, people can't wait for it to be here. It's also a strong sign that while every studio in the world is ready to jump out of the way whenever GTA 6 moves its release date, it doesn't have to use up all the oxygen in the room when it finally drops.
As you can see from the graphics, GTA 6 and The Witcher 4 were pretty close, so I think it's almost fair to consider the hype levels for them relatively equal. It certainly is when you compare them to the third most sought after game on Golden Joysticks, Resident Evil Requiem, which garnered less than half of The Witcher 4's total. Perhaps if Capcom confirms whether Leon will be in the game or not, the hype level will start to rise.
