Credit: CD Projekt Red / SEGA
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The Witcher 3 and SEGA split the Gamescom Awards 2026
August 29, 2026·7 min read
CD Projekt Red and SEGA collected three trophies each, Onimusha converted both of its nominations into wins, and Games Done Quick received the Heart of Gaming Award.
The Gamescom Awards 2026 presented trophies across 19 categories on Friday, August 28. CD Projekt Red and SEGA finished with three wins each, while Capcom and Ubisoft followed with two. There was no single Game of the Show prize to define the results. Instead, the awards separated creative achievements, platform categories and the wider exhibition, allowing METRO 2039 to win for its visuals while The Witcher 3 dominated the categories decided by trailers, merchandise and booth design. The official Gamescom results also gave the special Heart of Gaming Award to Games Done Quick.
Those results say as much about Gamescom as they do about the games. These are not year-end awards based on completed review builds. They recognise the strongest playable titles, presentations and exhibitor work available in Cologne, with an international jury selecting nominees and the community participating in the voting. That distinction explains how an RPG released more than a decade ago could share the lead with a publisher presenting several new games. It also matters because Gamescom's most enduring reveals demonstrate that the announcements remembered longest cannot always be identified during the week they appear.
CD Projekt Red did not win a gameplay, visual or platform category. Its three awards instead covered the complete public presentation of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered and the Songs of the Past expansion. The project received Best Booth from the jury, Best Merch for its pin and medallion set, and the community-selected Best Trailer/Announcement prize.
That sweep began at Opening Night Live, where CD Projekt Red turned one return into two announcements. The remaster arrives on September 29 as a free upgrade for eligible existing owners, while the paid Songs of the Past expansion is planned for 2027. As our Opening Night Live analysis explained, the pairing gives returning players an immediate technical upgrade and a separate reason to follow Geralt into a new region later.
The Gamescom awards recognise how effectively that information was carried through the entire event. A trailer established the comeback, the booth gave attendees a physical version of the world, and the merchandise turned its imagery into something visitors could take home. None of those trophies judges whether the remaster's revised combat or the expansion's story will succeed. Together, they show that CD Projekt Red built the most coherent single-franchise presence at Gamescom 2026.
SEGA reached the same total through three different strengths. Alien: Isolation 2 received Best Audio, Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000 won Best PC Game, and SEGA itself collected the jury prize for Best Lineup. Two of those wins belonged to Creative Assembly, but they came from games with very different requirements.
The value of sound in Alien: Isolation 2 is straightforward. Its predecessor used distant movement, machinery and the threat of an unseen Xenomorph to make listening part of survival. Winning Best Audio suggests the sequel's Gamescom build preserved that relationship instead of treating sound as decoration around a more action-focused return.
Total War: WARHAMMER 40,000 represents the other side of Creative Assembly. It must translate enormous armies, faction identities and strategic decisions into a new setting without reducing the licence to spectacle. Best PC Game is useful recognition for that playable structure, while Best Lineup rewards SEGA for having more than one convincing answer across the show floor. Unlike CD Projekt Red's concentrated sweep, SEGA's result depended on variety.
Capcom received two trophies, and both went to Onimusha: Way of the Sword. It won Best Gameplay and Best Sony PlayStation Game, beating nominees that included Alien: Isolation 2, Cairn, Denshattack!, The Blood of Dawnwalker and METRO 2039 across the two categories.
That is an efficient result for a game returning a series that has spent years outside Capcom's active front line. Best Gameplay matters more than an award for familiarity because it points toward the sword combat working in a playable build, not merely the value of the Onimusha name. The double win also extends an unusually strong Gamescom for Capcom after the publisher placed several projects across the nominations.
The most nominated game did not produce the most trophies. METRO 2039 entered with five nominations spanning visuals, three platforms and Most Epic, but finished with Best Visuals alone. That is still a clear achievement for 4A Games and Deep Silver, particularly during the game's first public hands-on appearance. It also stopped the results from becoming a predictable count of nominations.
The remaining Arts categories spread the spotlight across four more games. Wanderburg was named Most Entertaining, Tides of Annihilation won Most Epic, Finding Polka took Most Wholesome, and SOKO 1977: Anti-Terror Task Force received Games for Impact. Ubisoft's two wins came from different parts of the event: Rayman Legends Retold was named Best Nintendo Switch 2 Game, while the Ubisoft Business Lounge received the jury award for Best Business Booth.
The complete results are divided into Arts, Platform, and Global categories. The first two groups focus mainly on games available to assess at the event, while the Global awards recognise publishers, booths, merchandise and the wider Gamescom programme.
Gamescom's nomination and voting process is built around what exhibitors bring to Cologne. That makes the awards useful for identifying demos, presentations and show-floor ideas that worked during a crowded week. It does not make a trophy an early review score. An unreleased game can impress for 20 minutes and still struggle to sustain the same systems across a complete campaign.
The distribution of the 2026 trophies reflects that purpose. METRO 2039 made an immediate visual impression, Onimusha convinced through direct play, and SEGA offered the strongest overall range. CD Projekt Red understood the exhibition itself, carrying one announcement from the Opening Night Live stage into its booth and the public vote.
Games Done Quick was the right recipient for the one award designed to look beyond a product. The charity speedrunning organisation made its European debut at Gamescom with live runs scheduled from August 28 to 30. Its Heart of Gaming trophy recognised an event built around players, technical mastery and fundraising rather than a future release. In a results list otherwise dominated by publishers and upcoming games, that was the award most clearly concerned with what happens after people start playing.
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