Apple has announced the winners of the 2026 Apple Design Awards, giving recognition to 12 apps and games picked from 36 finalists around the world. The awards cover six categories: Delight and Fun, Inclusivity, Innovation, Interaction, Social Impact, and Visuals and Graphics. Each category has one app winner and one game winner. On the games side, the winners this year come from a mix of studios big and small, covering a wide range of genres and platforms.

Taking the Delight and Fun award is Is This Seat Taken? by Spain-based Poti Poti Studio. The game puts players inside cartoon-style public transit scenarios where they have to solve logic puzzles. Its charm comes from its quirky characters and laid-back pace, letting players work through each puzzle without feeling rushed. The Inclusivity award went to Pine Hearts by UK studio Hyper Luminal Games Limited. The game is built around doing good deeds in a wholesome world and puts a strong focus on accessibility, offering customisable controls, enhanced text legibility, and adjustable motion and sensory feedback so players of different abilities can enjoy it comfortably.

Blue Prince by US developer Dogubomb picked up the Innovation award. The game blends exploration, puzzle-solving, and storytelling in a room-by-room structure with no combat. It leans heavily on environmental details like wall paintings and handwritten notes to tell its story, and reportedly contains enough hidden content to fill a second game entirely. For Interaction, Sago Mini Jinja’s Garden by Canadian studio Sago Mini won the award. Available on Apple Arcade, the game is aimed at younger players and lets them plant, harvest, and cook through simple swipe controls that keep things easy to pick up without needing to read through instructions.

The Social Impact award went to Consume Me by Jenny Jiao Hsia and AP Thomson. The game is described as a personal and autobiographic experience that deals with sensitive emotional themes, using its gameplay mechanics to help players connect with feelings that are hard to put into words. Finally, Cyberpunk 2077: Ultimate Edition by CD Projekt S.A. from Poland took home the Visuals and Graphics award. The open-world game runs on Mac using Apple silicon and advanced Metal features, and was recognized for its detailed environments, character designs, and vehicle art that together create a visually rich and lived-in world.

Susan Prescott, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations, said the winners show how developers are building exceptional experiences, whether through gameplay or intuitive features, and called them the best of what the platform has to offer.