“Voting is open in the 44th Golden Joystick Awards” — the press release issued on September 25, 2026 names ANANTA among 20 nominees in the Most Wanted Game category, a list that also carries FINAL FANTASY VII REVELATION, Persona 6, The Witcher 4 and Black Myth: Zhong Kui. game8.co reported the same list on September 28 and Chinese outlets followed on September 27. Note what this is not: no new character, no new system, no new numbers. It is a third-party exposure milestone that put a game launching in 107 days back in front of a global audience.
1. What is actually sourced
Everything below comes from the awards release itself, which we read directly and checked line by line:
- Award and edition: 44th Golden Joystick Awards; the release went out September 25, 2026, opening public voting the same day.
- Category: Most Wanted Game — 20 nominees, ANANTA among them.
- Voting deadline: Friday, October 23, 2026 — 4pm PT / 7pm ET / midnight BST.
- Ceremony: Wednesday, November 11, 2026, in central London.
What is not sourced: any reaction from NetEase or Naked Rain. As of this update we found no official statement, congratulatory post, or campaign tied to the nomination. Community lottery posts circulating on Chinese content platforms were checked and are run by platform editors and community accounts, not by the developer or publisher. So this article records one fact — a third-party nomination has been announced — and predicts nothing about the outcome.
2. Who votes, and why that is the whole story
The Golden Joystick Awards are decided mainly by player votes, not by a jury. That single detail reframes the category: Most Wanted measures attention during the nomination window, not polish, completion, or critical reception. For a title that has not opened a public beta and whose client cannot be downloaded yet, player voting is the only dimension on which it can be measured at all.
Set that against another node on our timeline: Tokyo Game Show 2026 ran September 17–21 in Chiba, and neither NetEase nor Naked Rain appeared in the public exhibitor list — no visible booth this year (we covered that in TGS2026 and the typhoon that ended it early). In other words, in the same week ANANTA was absent from the show floor, it picked up a slot in a worldwide online vote. The centre of gravity moved from queues around a booth to clicks on a ballot.
3. The 84-day gap, or why nobody can review their vote
Do the arithmetic and the category explains itself. Voting closes October 23, 2026. ANANTA launches January 15, 2027, the date confirmed live at gamescom 2026 Opening Night Live (see our global release date report). The gap is 84 days: the winner is crowned almost three months before most voters could plausibly have played any of the nominees.
Three consequences follow:
- A nomination — or a win — in this category is not a quality endorsement. It is a popularity reading taken before the product ships.
- For players the practical effect is informational: it tells a wider audience that an urban open-world RPG from NetEase’s Naked Rain studio arrives in January.
- The awards release contains no ANANTA pre-registration, demo, or sales figures, so any argument of the shape “it was nominated, therefore it is good” is unsupported by the source.
Whether voting requires an account, whether regions are restricted, and whether multiple votes are allowed are not covered in the release. Read those rules on the awards’ own page; we do not restate screenshots from secondary posts.
4. Our own numbers: where this sits in the site ledger
Method: live count of src/content/ on September 30, 2026, identical across all four languages.
- Our timeline grows from 12 nodes to 13: 10 on the development line, 3 on the lore line. The new node is Golden Joystick Most Wanted nomination. Counting by event date, five of those ten development nodes now fall inside September 2026 — the cosmetics-monetization stance (Sep 2), the content-volume commitment (Sep 14), the testing-policy stance (Sep 15), the TGS2026 exhibitor-list finding (Sep 17–21) and this nomination (Sep 25).
- Our glossary goes from 43 entries to 44 with the new Golden Joystick Awards term, and the cheatsheet expands to 42 cards.
- This is our 43rd four-language post (172 source files across en / zh-cn / ja / ko).
- Countdown math as of today: 107 days to launch, 23 days to the voting deadline, 42 days to the ceremony. Live counter: release countdown tool.
The genuinely original observation is the last one in sequence: this is the first node on our development timeline whose source is not NetEase, Naked Rain, a developer interview or a regulatory record. The nine before it trace to official press releases, platform newsflashes, a gamescom interview, or China’s publishing-license record. The tenth traces to an awards body and a public ballot — which is what a pre-launch franchise looks like when it starts generating its own news rather than only announcing it.
5. What to watch next, by date
Only two of the following have official dates: October 23, 2026 (voting closes) and November 11, 2026 (London ceremony). NetEase’s quarterly earnings call has historically fallen in late November, which is a pattern, not a schedule — we mark it to be confirmed. Then January 15, 2027, global launch.
One reminder while the nomination generates goodwill: the only door before launch is pre-registration, not voting or giveaways. See the pre-registration term page and our cosmetics monetization audit — spending is limited to outfits, vehicle liveries and home decor, and it never changes combat stats. A trophy shortlist does not move that line either.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Is ANANTA nominated for the Golden Joystick Awards?
Yes. The 44th Golden Joystick Awards opened public voting on September 25, 2026 and ANANTA is listed among the 20 nominees in the Most Wanted Game category. Neither NetEase nor Naked Rain has publicly commented on the nomination as of this writing.
When does Golden Joystick Awards voting close for ANANTA?
Voting closes Friday, October 23, 2026 at 4pm PT / 7pm ET / midnight BST. The awards ceremony takes place November 11, 2026 in central London. Use the awards’ own site for entry points and rules.
Has ANANTA won the award?
No — nomination only. Voting ends 84 days before the game launches on January 15, 2027, so the category measures pre-launch anticipation, not quality, and a win would not be a review score.
Who votes in the Golden Joystick Awards?
The public. Player voting is the defining feature of the ceremony, which is why Most Wanted tracks attention during the nomination window rather than finished quality.
When and where does ANANTA release?
January 15, 2027 worldwide on the official PC client, Steam, PS5, iOS and Android, as a free-to-play title with no character gacha. Live figures are on our release countdown.
Was ANANTA at Tokyo Game Show 2026?
No public presence was found. TGS2026 ran September 17–21, 2026 and neither NetEase nor Naked Rain appeared in the public exhibitor list. Whether private business meetings happened is not stated by anyone official, so we do not claim it.
Are the “nomination giveaway” posts official?
No. The giveaway threads we checked were started by content-platform editors and community accounts, not by NetEase or Naked Rain. Before launch the only official route into the game is pre-registration.