Half-Life 3 was once the most anticipated game in the entire world. Now it’s become the saddest ongoing joke in the gaming industry. It’s to the point that even the smallest hint of the game's existence can drive fans into a frenzy.

Which is what happened recently when a fan received an email from Gabe Newell himself. The Valve News Network, which is an unofficial Valve fan organization run by Travis McVicker, posted a video on their Youtube channel that gave a glimmer of hope that Gordon Freeman may make a comeback.

The video showed various fans emailing Valve and Gabe and getting jokey answers in response. However at the end of the video, one fan’s email asked the question “was just wondering, will I be able to play a new chapter of Half-Life before my life ends? I’m 32 now.”

It was a silly question that countless others have probably asked, but it got a response from the mighty Gaben that got people excited: “Just don’t die in the next 5 years or so 😉”

Now asking someone to not die in the next half decade isn’t really much of a hint or confirmation of anything, but for Half-Life fans it was something. It meant that Half-Life 3 might exist, and could conceivably come out sometime before 2024. This was huge. This was exciting.

This was fake. Of course.

McVicker confirmed via Twitter that people had reached out to Gabe Newell for comment and were told the email was fake. The video with the false email was then removed and re-edited with a different ending. Any tweets relating to the email were deleted as well.

RELATED: Will Half-Life 3 Ever Come Out?

To give an idea of why fans would freak out over something as small as a five year release window for a video game, Half-Life 2: Episode 2 came out in October of 2007. That means it’s now been nearly 12 years since Half-Life 2: Episode 3 or even just Half-Life 3 itself was due to come out. There have been rumors about what’s going with the game, but throughout the past decade there hasn’t been even the slightest sign that the game is either coming out or even in development.

To make matters worse, Valve hasn’t truly released a new game in quite some time. Left 4 Dead 2 came out in 2009, while Portal 2 came out in 2011. The most recent release was DOTA 2 in 2013, which has been quite the cash cow for Gabe and co. That game, combined with the money making machine that is Steam, has made it so Valve hasn’t needed to release a new game for quite some time.

(Ok yes there was Artifact, but the less said about that the better.)

There’s no word on whether or not the Big 3’s of Valve (Half-Life 3, Portal 3, Left 4 Dead 3, even Team Fortress 3) will ever see the light of day. At least while Valve sits upon its mountain of Steam bucks, other developers are trying to pick up where they left off.