If you follow Korean games from outside Korea, the Korea Game Awards are the closest thing the country has to a national game of the year.
The event is hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and organized by the Korea Association of Game Industry (K-GAMES), and the top prize is presented as the President's Award.
On October 26 the association revealed 12 Main Award nominees and opened public voting on the official awards website. This year's shortlist is unusually relevant to PC players worldwide.
Pearl Abyss's Crimson Desert launched globally on Steam and consoles in March, NCSOFT's AION 2 has been running in Korea and Taiwan since November 2025, and the small studio ReLU Games made the cut with MIMESIS, a Steam co-op horror title published with KRAFTON.
The rest of the list includes titles played on mobile, such as The World of Dokkaebi and Eclipse: The Awakening, plus The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin. Voting closes on November 16 at 5 PM KST and winners are announced on November 18 at BEXCO in Busan.
The next morning, the same venue opens G-STAR 2026, Korea's biggest game show. This guide covers the nominees, how to vote, how the scores are weighted, and last year's results, based on reporting of the official announcement and Steam store data as of November 12. We will add the winners after the ceremony.
The 12 nominees, and why Crimson Desert and AION 2 lead the coverage
The Main Award nominees, by developer, are: The World of Dokkaebi (Supercat), Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch (Ocean Drive Studio), MONGIL: STAR DIVE (Netmarble Monster), Crimson Desert (Pearl Abyss), StoneAge: Idle Adventure (Netmarble N2), Eclipse: The Awakening (Npixel), The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin (Netmarble F&C), Imjin War: Joseon's Counterattack (Redginkgo Games), Zeus: God of Arrogance (Abutton), Chaos Zero Nightmare (Smilegate), AION 2 (NCSOFT) and MIMESIS (ReLU Games).
Korean outlets have framed the grand prize race around Crimson Desert and AION 2. Crimson Desert is an open world action adventure released worldwide on PC and consoles, while AION 2 is an MMORPG playable on both PC and mobile in Korea and Taiwan that launched in both regions in November 2025.
Still, half of the Main Award score comes from the judging panel and no vote totals have been published, so the winner will only be known at the November 18 ceremony. This guide does not try to call it.
If you want to compare with the Western awards season, our The Game Awards schedule and nominees guide and TGA 2026 GOTY predictions show where Korean and global picks overlap.
Korea Game Awards 2026 at a glance (as of November 12)
| Item | Details | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Main Award nominees | 12 games including Crimson Desert, AION 2, The World of Dokkaebi and MIMESIS | Published October 26 on the official site |
| Public voting window | October 26 to November 16, 5 PM KST | Vote on the official Korea Game Awards website |
| Main Award scoring | Judging panel 50%, public vote 25%, media vote 25% | Media vote includes game journalists and influencers |
| Popular Game Award | 9 nominees, public vote weighted at 80% | Crimson Desert, AION 2, MIMESIS and others |
| Popular Voice Actor Award | 3 nominees, public vote 50% and media vote 50% | Nam Do-hyeong, Lee Jae-hyun (Lee Hyun), Lee Jang-won |
| Ceremony | November 18, 4 PM KST, BEXCO Hall 2, Busan | The day before G-STAR 2026 opens |
| Categories | 13 in total, including Grand Prize, Excellence, Technology and Popular Game | Organized by K-GAMES |
| Last year's Grand Prize | Mabinogi Mobile (Nexon devCAT) | Presented November 12, 2025 at BEXCO |
Before you vote
- Main Award and Popular Game Award weigh public votes differently: 25% versus 80%
- The deadline is Sunday, November 16 at 5 PM KST, which is Saturday night in the Americas
- The Popular Voice Actor Award started last year; this year's nominees are Nam Do-hyeong, Lee Jae-hyun (Lee Hyun) and Lee Jang-won
- Only enter personal details on the official site, never on a page that just looks like it
- The ceremony on November 18 sits right before G-STAR 2026, which runs November 19 to 22 at the same venue
- Last year Mabinogi Mobile won the Grand Prize, The First Berserker: Khazan won Excellence, and Seven Knights Re:BIRTH won Popular Game
How to vote and follow the results
- 1Open the official awards websiteVotes are only collected on the official Korea Game Awards website run by K-GAMES. The site is in Korean, so a browser translation feature helps. Reach it through the association's announcement rather than links shared on forums or lookalike pages.
- 2Check which category your game is inThe Main Award has 12 nominees, the Popular Game Award has 9 and the Voice Actor Award has 3. They do not fully overlap: Chaos Zero Nightmare and Lost Eidolons are Main Award only, while one idle mobile title appears only among the Popular Game nominees.
- 3Submit your picksPick a nominee in each category and submit. Login and participation rules follow the official site's instructions. If you want your vote to carry the most weight, the Popular Game Award is the category where public votes count for 80%.
- 4Finish before November 16, 5 PM KSTThat is 3 AM Eastern and midnight Pacific on Sunday, November 16, or 8 AM in London. Players in the Americas effectively need to vote by Saturday night local time.
- 5Catch the results on November 18The ceremony starts at 4 PM KST on November 18, which is 2 AM Eastern the same day. All 13 categories are announced in one show. We will update this page with the winners.
Record your own run of the nominees
Plenty of people try a nominee before voting. DOR is a free Windows game recorder: keep it running on your PC, and when you launch a supported game such as Crimson Desert or AION 2 it detects the game automatically and records the whole session from launch to exit.
Every recording lands in My Clips inside the app. Trim the boss kill or the big siege you want to keep and export it as 16:9, 9:16 or 1:1. For sending a scene to friends, see how to share Crimson Desert gameplay, and for pulling a single dungeon boss out of a long AION 2 session, see how to share AION 2 gameplay.
To join several clips, add text or background music, use DOR Studio and export an mp4 or share a dor.gg link.
