Numbers at a glance (as of Oct 2, 2026)
- Decided award: Japan Game Awards 2025 — Future Division, published in a NetEase press release on 2025-09-28.
- Live nomination: 44th Golden Joystick Awards, Most Wanted Game — voting closes 2026-10-23, ceremony 2026-11-11.
- Official global pre-registrations: 17 million+ across 110 countries and regions (launch-date press release, 2026-08-25/26).
- TapTap single-channel reservations: roughly 3.76 million (rating 8.3) — a different magnitude, not a second global milestone.
- Countdown: 105 days to the 2027-01-15 global launch, 21 days to the Golden Joystick vote deadline.
Before launch, players mix up two very different kinds of “endorsement”: an award already handed out, and a nomination still being voted on. Their certainty — and whether you can use them as a decision signal — are not the same. This piece does one job: it lays out every ANANTA third-party stamp of approval that has an official or clearly-attributed source, and corrects one very common misreading along the way. Those two pre-registration numbers were never meant to be compared.
1. A decided win: Japan Game Awards 2025, Future Division
The first is already final. ANANTA won the Future Division award at the Japan Game Awards 2025. What makes it reliable is the source: a NetEase Interactive Entertainment press release dated September 28, 2025 states the win plainly (“受賞”). That is not a media paraphrase or a community roundup — it is the publisher’s own wording. More precisely, the Japan Game Awards is run by Japan’s CESA; this edition’s Future Division honor was revealed at Tokyo Game Show 2025 on 2025-09-28 among 11 winning works, with the NetEase release and multiple outlets as corroborating sources.
Until today our Testing & Trailers timeline node described this loosely as a “Most Anticipated Game” award, which was under-precise. We have aligned it to the exact official division name (Future Division) and, on the Game Info page, added the wiki’s first award card backed by an official source. To check us, those two pages are where to look.
The key read: this is an award, not a nomination. It is settled and will not change with any later vote, so it is a conclusion-level signal that an overseas third party rated ANANTA favourably back in 2025.
2. A live nomination: 44th Golden Joystick, Most Wanted Game
The second is a different animal. ANANTA is nominated for the Most Wanted Game category at the 44th Golden Joystick Game Awards — but “nominated” is not “won.” This one runs on public voting: opened 2026-09-25, closes 2026-10-23, with the ceremony on 2026-11-11. As of today, it is undecided.
We covered this in a dedicated post, Why Did ANANTA Make the Golden Joystick Shortlist, and broke it into its own third-party-recognition timeline node. We will not re-argue it here; we only mark the boundary: Most Wanted is a popularity vote that measures pre-launch buzz, not game quality. Saying “this game must be great” because of it is overreach; saying “a lot of people are watching it” is accurate.
One-line contrast: Japan Game Awards = a decided win; Golden Joystick = a live nomination. The first is settled, the second is in-progress. Rolling them into “won two awards” is the classic mistake in these threads.
3. Two pre-registration numbers you must not merge
“How many people pre-registered for ANANTA” has at least two answers online: 17 million and 3.76 million. Neither is wrong; they measure different scopes, and merging them manufactures fake news.
- 17 million+, 110 countries/regions comes from the global launch-date official press release (2026-08-25/26). It is the all-platform, worldwide total — the single official figure this wiki uses for “global pre-registrations.”
- ~3.76 million is the TapTap single-channel count (China-leaning). Our 2026-10-02 live check showed 3.76 million and a rating of 8.3. It is a subset channel inside the 17 million, not a competing global milestone.
The correct reading: “17M+ worldwide” is the total; “TapTap ~3.76M” is one channel’s slice of it. You cannot say “reservations fell from 17M to 3.76M,” and you cannot treat 3.76M as “the real number.” This wiki locked that boundary in September precisely to block this mix-up.
4. Original site data: how much of this “recognition track” we already log
Method: live count of src/content/timeline and src/data/game-info.ts on 2026-10-02, structurally identical across languages.
- Our timeline holds 13 nodes (10 development + 3 lore), and 2026 alone carries 7 development nodes — launch date, two cities, no gacha, no public beta, content commitment, Golden Joystick nomination, TGS absence. Seven official milestones in one year make 2026 the densest year since the project first appeared publicly. Only walking the whole timeline lets you say that.
- Yet “winning an award” was, until today, not actually logged as an award: before this post the Game Info awards block held exactly one card, and that card was not an award — it was the “17M pre-registrations” milestone. Zero official-sourced wins had a card. Today the Japan Game Awards 2025 Future Division becomes our first official win card, filing “decided award” and “live nomination” as separate things.
- This is the site’s 45th four-language post. Time coordinates (release countdown): 105 days to the 2027-01-15 launch, 21 days to the Golden Joystick vote close — which means you will see the Golden Joystick result a little over three weeks before the game itself launches.
5. How to actually use these “endorsement” signals before launch
A practical order, so these numbers inform rather than hype:
- File “won” and “nominated” separately. The Japan Game Awards is citable as fact; the Golden Joystick is in-progress until 10-23 — do not write “won” for it early.
- Trust exactly one global pre-reg figure. For the total, use “17M+ / 110 countries.” If you cite a channel, label it “TapTap single-channel, ~3.76M.” Never place them side by side or subtract one from the other.
- Endorsement ≠ numbers. Third-party awards corroborate “industry buzz,” but they say nothing about skill multipliers, gacha odds, or character strength — none of which has been published. Those remain marked “TBA” here, per the record-keeping boundaries on the characters and cities pages.
Third-party endorsement can tell you whether to keep watching. It cannot tell you who to build after launch. The first has sources and is checkable; the second is something the developers have not spoken about — and whoever invents it first will eat the correction.
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Has ANANTA won any award?
Yes. ANANTA won the Future Division award at the Japan Game Awards 2025, published in a NetEase Interactive Entertainment press release on 2025-09-28 — an already-decided win.
Is ANANTA nominated for the Golden Joystick?
It is nominated for Most Wanted Game at the 44th Golden Joystick Awards. That is a public-vote category; voting closes 2026-10-23 and the ceremony is 2026-11-11, so the result is still undecided — it cannot be written as a win.
How many people pre-registered for ANANTA?
The official press-release figure is 17 million+ across 110 countries and regions (worldwide, all platforms). The 3.76-million number is the TapTap single-channel count — one slice, not a separate total.
Are the Japan Game Awards and the Golden Joystick the same thing?
No. The Japan Game Awards 2025 Future Division is an already-decided award; the Golden Joystick Most Wanted is a live public vote measuring pre-launch buzz. Their certainty and meaning differ.
When does ANANTA launch?
Globally on January 15, 2027, on PC (official client and Steam), PS5, iOS and Android — free-to-play with no character gacha. See the Game Info page and the release countdown.
Do these awards say the game is good, or which character is strongest?
No. Third-party endorsement only corroborates expectation levels; it covers no skill multipliers, gacha odds, or character strength. Those are unpublished, so this wiki marks them “TBA.”
Sources: Japan Game Awards 2025 Future Division — NetEase Interactive Entertainment press release (2025-09-28); Golden Joystick Most Wanted nomination and voting/ceremony dates — see our 2026-09-30 post and timeline node; 17M+ / 110-country pre-registrations — the 2026-08-25 global launch-date press release; TapTap ~3.76M — a 2026-10-02 live snapshot (single channel, not merged with the global figure). Where nothing official has been published, it is marked “TBA.”