Popular faces seem to be appearing more and more in video games. We’ve seen Keanu Reeves starring as Johnny Silverhand in Cyberpunk 2077, Hideo Kojima has pulled nearly half of Hollywood into Death Stranding, and Fortnite keeps adding popular icons such as Batman. But there’s one person who continues to try and insert a specific animal into games: Geoff Keighley.Mr. Keighley, an ex-host for GameTrailers TV, and a freelance writer for various outlets started up his own awards show in 2014 titled The Game Awards. The award ceremony is designed to celebrate achievements in the video game industry. You’ll no doubt see him at numerous video game events and enjoying his friendships with famous faces in the industry.The year 2013 seems to be the first year I can find in which Geoff Keighley begins to harp on about giraffes a noticeable amount. It seems to have started with just sharing his delight about the long-necked creatures, but has slowly escalated to become his brand. Now, it looks as though he’s trying to forcefully include giraffes in popular video games.Back in 2013, Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us launched on PS3, and features a scene where Joel and Ellie see some giraffes in an overgrown city. Given Geoff’s current excitement for the upcoming sequel The Last of Us Part II, I believe his adoration towards giraffes in games stems from that very scene.However, on June 4, 2013, Geoff Tweeted that he loves giraffes, referencing the popular Toys R Us mascot, a giraffe named Geoffery. He claimed it was because Geoffery spells his name with a G, as opposed to the alternative, Jeffery. This was in the same month as E3 2013 which Geoff attended and tweeted out a picture of a giraffe wearing a bowtie that Spike TV had provided for the event.Later that year, Geoff brought our attention to the box art of Zoo Tycoon featuring a giraffe. This clearly delighted Geoff as it truly meant the Xbox One-exclusive launch title was bringing next-generation giraffes running on the new Microsoft console. Little did the industry know what the man had in store for video game giraffes in the future.A year later in 2014, Geoff asked someone on Twitter if there was going to be a playable giraffe in a video game. Sadly, Twitter seems to have lost the original Tweet, so all we can do is speculate on whatever game he’s referencing. It’s likely safe to say that he mentioned giraffes occasionally online and in replies to people, but as the years went on, his giraffe plan began to formulate even more.Giraffe Town, a game in which you play as a weird clumsy giraffe launched on PC in 2018, and Geoff caught wind of it and shared it. However, he seemed to be under the impression that it was a spin-off title starring the giraffe from The Last of Us. No one seemed to clarify that it was an unrelated giraffe.Living in adoration for his video game giraffes took a dramatic turn these past two years. The Last of Us Part II was still heavily under wraps when Geoff Keighley and Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann began publicly talking about him having a part in the upcoming sequel as a giraffe. Geoff sent Neil various videos of him acting and singing as an Animoji giraffe, and his potential inclusion looked promising. However, we since haven't heard of Keighley's involvement being confirmed, but the game is still to launch, so there’s a possibility.This year, it started to look as if Geoff’s dream of having his favorite giraffe in video games was becoming a success. Geoff had changed his profile picture to the giraffe from The Last of Us on September 23, but there was something odd. The giraffe was actually hologram-styled similarly to what is seen in Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding. We know that Geoff and Kojima have met up in the past. Hell, even Geoff himself is in Death Stranding as a hologram, so there’s a very good chance that he’s nudged his favorite giraffe into the game as well.The Last of Us Part II was then ready to be revealed to the public some more this past month, and Geoff took the opportunity to tweet that there would be an important update on the status of giraffes in the game. We were, of course, not informed of any giraffes being in the game, but going by the Animoji musical situation earlier in the year, we may just see Geoff’s favorite giraffe making a cameo.

Due to Geoff’s excessive mention of giraffes in games, I grew confused when Geoff Tweeted a different species in a Tweet reading, “Best Performance of 2019? #thegameawards” and used a photo of HouseHouse’s Untitled Goose Game. But then it became clear that Geoff must believe that the goose is, in fact, the giraffe of the duck world.

The rate at which Geoff Keighley’s continued recognition of giraffes is going, I believe he’ll be making it mandatory that his industry friends incorporate a giraffe of some sort into all of their projects by the year 2021. Eventually, we’ll be seeing giraffes becoming a national video game icon, and we’ll have Geoff to thank or hate.

Geoff Keighley is to be hosting this year’s The Game Awards 2019 which is due to take place this December. We’ll have to keep eyes peeled for any announcements with giraffes included. We’ll then know exactly how much Geoff’s influence is taking hold of the industry, and whether we must prepare for a video game giraffe future.