gamescom Award 2026 Winners: The Witcher 3 and Sega Clean Up, Onimusha Takes Best Gameplay

Gamescom 2026 wrapped up in Cologne this weekend, and before the doors closed the show handed out its annual awards on Friday evening. The headline is a strange one, and we mean that as a compliment: the biggest winner of a trade show built around unreleased games was The Witcher 3, a game that came out in 2015.

CD Projekt Red and Sega topped the count with three trophies each, Capcom and Ubisoft grabbed two apiece, and the winners were decided by a mix of an expert jury and votes from the visitors walking the show floor. Nineteen categories were handed out in total, so here is what actually matters from the list.

Onimusha, Forza and the platform winners

Capcom's Onimusha: Way of the Sword quietly had the best night of any actual game. It won Best Gameplay, the closest thing these awards have to a top prize, and added Best Sony PlayStation Game on top. No other title won two game categories, which says a lot ahead of its 2026 launch window.

The rest of the platform slate went mostly to heavyweights. Forza Horizon 6 took Best Xbox Game, Total War: Warhammer 40,000 won Best PC Game after the gameplay reveal we covered earlier this summer, Rayman Legends Retold claimed Best Nintendo Switch 2 Game, and Where Winds Meet won Best Mobile Game. On the arts side, Metro 2039 earned Best Visuals and Alien: Isolation 2 took Best Audio, which will surprise nobody who remembers how the first game weaponized sound.

The Witcher 3 steals a show about new games

Now for the fun part. CD Projekt Red won Best Booth from the jury, Best Merch from the public for its Witcher pin and medallion set, and Best Trailer from the consumer vote for the Witcher 3 Remastered and Songs of the Past announcement. That last one was earned: the remaster lands September 29 as a free update for existing owners, with a full expansion to follow, and the crowd in Cologne clearly noticed.

Video: The Witcher on YouTube

Our favorite award, though, went to nobody selling anything. The Heart of Gaming special jury prize was given to Games Done Quick, the speedrunning marathon organization that has raised tens of millions for charity over the years. Award shows at trade fairs usually reward marketing budgets, and plenty of that happened here too, but a jury choosing to spotlight a community project over a publisher is the kind of decision we would like to see more often. An 11 year old RPG and a charity speedrun group walking away as the stories of gamescom 2026 tells you the audience still votes with its heart, not the release calendar.