Crimson Desert vs AION 2: Inside the 2026 Korea Game Awards Race
Twelve games, 13 trophies and one President's Award. The Korea Game Awards hand out Korea's top games prize in Busan on November 18. Here is who is in the running, how the votes are counted and what 30 years of winners say about the industry.
In 2008, NCSOFT's Aion won Korea's top games prize. Eighteen years later, its sequel is back in the race, and its main rival is a single-player open-world game from a studio best known for MMOs. That contrast says a lot about how far Korean games have travelled.
The 2026 Korea Game Awards take place on November 18, 2026, at 4pm KST at BEXCO in Busan, the day before G-STAR 2026 opens. Winners will be named in 13 categories, topped by the Grand Prize, the President's Award.
The twelve nominees
The Korea Association of Game Industry (K-GAMES) has published 12 nominees for the main awards:
- Crimson Desert (Pearl Abyss)
- AION 2 (NCSOFT)
- The World of Dokkaebi
- Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch
- MONGIL: STAR DIVE
- StoneAge: Idle Adventure
- Eclipse: The Awakening
- The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin
- Imjin War: Joseon's Counterattack
- Zeus: God of Arrogance
- Chaos Zero Nightmare
- Mimesis
Netmarble has the most of any publisher, with three titles from its studios on the list. But the headline contest is the one in this story's title. Crimson Desert launched on March 19, 2026, on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, and Pearl Abyss said it sold 6 million copies in 83 days. AION 2 is NCSOFT's return to the series that made it a household name.
How the votes are counted
The awards are run by K-GAMES and hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, with Electronic Times and Sports Chosun as sponsors. Companies submitted their games from September 28 to October 12. Winners of KOCCA's "Game of the Year" awards are entered automatically, as in past years.
For the main awards, the result is a blend: a judging panel counts for 50%, a public vote for 25% and a vote by games media for 25%. Public voting ran on the official site from October 26 to 5pm KST on November 16. A separate Popular Game award has nine nominees, including Crimson Desert, AION 2, MONGIL: STAR DIVE and Mimesis.
There is also a newer prize for voice acting, the Popular Voice Actor award, first given last year. The nominees are Nam Do-hyeong (Cloud in MONGIL: STAR DIVE), Lee Jae-hyun, who works as Lee Hyun (Kliff in Crimson Desert), and Lee Jang-won (Yi Sun-sin in Imjin War: Joseon's Counterattack). Lee Hyun won the award in its first year.
Thirty years of winners
The honours board reads like a history of Korean games. The PC online era dominates: Lineage II, Aion, TERA (2011), Blade & Soul, ArcheAge (2013), Lost Ark (2019). Mobile games arrived with Blade for Kakao in 2014 and then took over, from Netmarble's Raven in 2015 to Black Desert Mobile in 2018 and Dungeon & Fighter Mobile in 2022.
The last three years show the new range. In 2023, NEOWIZ's Lies of P, a console and PC action game, won. In 2024, Netmarble's Solo Leveling: Arise took the Grand Prize, Netmarble's first in nine years, while Stellar Blade collected seven awards. In 2025, the 30th anniversary edition, devCAT's Mabinogi Mobile won and Neople's The First Berserker: Khazan took Best Excellence, the first time the Nexon group won both top prizes.
Why it matters
In Korea, the Grand Prize is more than a trophy. It is a signal to investors, recruiters and the government about what the industry thinks a great Korean game looks like. For most of its history, that answer was an online PC or mobile game with long-running monetisation.
WGC's take: a Crimson Desert win would confirm the shift toward premium console and PC games that Lies of P, Stellar Blade and Khazan began. An AION 2 win would remind everyone that the MMORPG is still the backbone of Korean games. Either way, the result lands on November 18, the night before G-STAR's doors open.
For more background, read how Korean studios conquered PC and console and how G-STAR became Korea's game show.