Geoff Keighley denies he’s hiding Half-Life 3 in his Steam wishlist, posts a screenshot to prove it, nobody believes him, and I’m starting to wonder if he’s just messing with us

Half-Life 3 fever has been running hot this week, for reasons—and I use that term loosely—we laid out here, which can very generally be described as “it’s November and we’re all a little bored and restless.” One small bit of pseudo-evidence did catch my eye, though: As PC Gamer’s freest man Tyler Wilde noted, “Geoff Keighley posted a 👀 emoji.” What?

The whole thing began innocently enough—or at least so it appeared. Keighley, host of The Game Awards, posted a message on X urging his followers to “Check out #TheGameAwards nominee page on Steam to celebrate the best of the year.” He attached an image of the Steam front page, which—because he was logged in at the time—revealed that he has precisely one game in his wishlist.

This did not go unnoticed by the ever-sharp Wario64 (via GamesRadar), who asked, “What’s the one game you have wishlisted?” Dozens of people shared their theories, and there were many and varied thoughts, but one overarching theme shone through:

Keighley himself really set things off, though, with his googly-eyes emoji response: A flood of hope and cope followed from people who wanted to believe, or at least who wanted to get in on the fun.

And this kind of baseless, wild speculation is fun—frankly, I think whipping up the feeding frenzy every now and then is much more entertaining than Half-Life 3 itself could ever be. Remember Duke Nukem Forever, kids: Sometimes it’s better to dream of what could be than live with the reality of what is.

Still, there is some basis for believing that Keighley has the inside track: He was working on a Half-Life: Alyx documentary for a couple of years before it was revealed to the world, after all. (Side note: Half-Life: Alyx was announced on November 18, 2019.)

Anyway, it took nearly a full day but Keighley eventually moved to quell the furor, revealing that his one and only wishlisted game is Dadlympics, a 2024 multiplayer game “where dad jokes meet physics-based mayhem.” It was released in September 2024 and achieved a peak concurrent player count of six.

You may be shocked to learn that this did not effectively put out the fire: The screenshot Keighley shared to prove he’s not hiding anything very clearly indicates that he added it to his wishlist on November 18, the day after the kerfuffle began. What is he hiding?

(My guess? Not Half-Life 3.)