The big Season 5 update for Halo: The Master Chief Collection is nearly here, and among its new additions are a whopping 80 new armor pieces for Halo 3 and Halo: Reach. 343 Industries has now revealed a number of these and spoke more generally about where they came from.
The new armors stem in part from the canceled Russian free-to-play game Halo Online, which was based on the Halo 3 engine. When they are released for Halo: MCC in the Season 5, they will officially become canon, 343 said.
The Mister Chief helmet
Season 5 is called Anvil, a name that is inspired by the Anvil Station from Halo lore. “At Anvil Station, the UNSC would test skunkworks technologies and clandestine prototypes, some destined for full and successful production runs, other merely serving as a stop-gap in the development pipeline of Mjolnir components, weapon advancements, and more,” 343 said. “Warriors from both sides were eager to face off in field test simulations, hoping to not only advance their respective technologies, but hone their personal proficiency in battle.”
These new armors will be available in Halo 3 and Halo: Reach’s customization menus. One of them stands taller than the rest, if you ask me.
The Mister Chief helmet, pictured above, is described jokingly by 343 as, “The absolute zenith of human endeavor and a perfect encapsulation of human talent.”
Mister Chief is famous in Halo media, with the designed having been created by Halo franchise manager Frank O’Connor earlier in his career.
In the blog post, 343 joked that Mister Chief “might not be hard canon.” You can see the rest of the helmets and armor pieces in the gallery below.
Players who don’t want to see any of the new armors can toggle them off, along with any of the previously added skins for weapons and vehicles.
Gallery
The MCC Season 5 update is scheduled to release on January 27 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and PC. It’s a big week for Halo, as 343 will follow that up with the next reveal for Halo Infinite where the developers will discuss the game’s sandbox elements.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons is getting a dose of Hello Kitty in March, with a set of Sanrio Amiibo cards. The Animal Crossing Sanrio Collaboration Pack will be available at Target stores on March 26 and cost $6.
The pack includes all six Amiibo cards, with functionality to be announced sometime in the future. Some of the cards are themed after popular characters like Hello Kitty and My Melody, while others just capture colorful or thematic backgrounds. Each of the cards also features an existing Animal Crossing character, like Marty, Chai, and Toby. You can see all six cards below.
These cards were first announced in 2017. Those cards worked with Animal Crossing: New Leaf and then later with New Horizons. Assuming the functionality is the same, they unlock a series of in-game posters for New Horizon that you can hang on your wall, displaying Animal Crossing and Sanrio characters.
The Sanrio announcement was made alongside word of the Festivale update coming this week, which will start in February. That event will let you capture feathers with your net to trade them in for dance moves. You can also grab new reactions like Feelin’ It, Let’s Go, Viva, and Confetti for a limited time during the event period. More items are coming to celebrate Valentine’s Day, Groundhog Day, and the Super Bowl, and another update is scheduled for March.
UK retailer Argos has been targeted by PS5 scalping groups, possibly contributing to lower-than-expected availability during a recent stock update.
In the early hours of January 26, UK gamers were delighted to see the PS5 back in stock at Argos. But, just as we’ve seen time and time again, the stock lasted for a much shorter time than expected, amid widespread issues. Not only was the site buggy, alongside the app, but there was also supposedly even less stock than expected on the already limited supply of consoles.
Multiple sources (who wished to remain anonymous) have confirmed to IGN that this is in part because individuals were able to order PS5 consoles from Argos on January 25, a full day before the aforementioned official stock drop. This was down to a loophole discovered by scalping group Express Notify, a paid-for Discord server that shared links allowing users to buy the PS5 before the general public even knew about the new stock. Express Notify has been publicly taking credit, with many of its users showing off their orders for multiple consoles.
Argos supposedly shut these rogue links down quickly, but not without several consoles being sold and even collected from Argos outlets beforehand. There hasn’t been any confirmation of how many PS5s were claimed before the loophole was closed, but this is just another example in the growing list of frustrations that customers are facing when trying to purchase the next-gen system.
To compound the issues, those who were attempting to buy legitimately via Argos in the early hours of the morning weren’t exactly given a head start. At first, stock appeared to be available on the Argos app – which repeatedly dropped for maintenance – but not on Argos’ browser-based website. However, even success with the app was seemingly entirely dependant on your area, and whether it wanted to play ball in general. Some users reported success, others said the money came out of their account without a confirmation email, while many more were left without a console once again.
Hulu is giving us a brand-new reason to re-watch Palm Springs. This week, the streaming service released a commentary cut for which Hulu is calling the first of its kind in streaming. The commentary track features stars Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti, as well as director Max Barbakow and screenwriter Andy Siara (with whom Samberg is already working on a new, untitled project).
Palm Springs hit during as the doldrums of COVID-19 isolation, and it felt like a perfect fit for the huge shifts we were coming to grips with during that time. The film was an early favorite for 2020 and stood up through the year’s releases to come and made it into our best-of lists for 2020.
“As far as I know, we’re the first,” Samberg said in an interview with Variety. “We realized that Palm Springs will always be on Hulu, which is great, but there are elements of the DVD experience that just don’t exist anymore. They [Hulu] were very amenable in talking about the ways to get some fun stuff in there.”
Entertainment extras began to accompany movies as DVDs rose in popularity, with discs including everything from one or more commentary tracks to deleted scenes, galleries, and more. The advent of streaming, has almost entirely killed that off, though. Some services have experimented with extras, like Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe, which has its own commentary podcast that you can play alongside the film. Purchased movies, like those available through the iTunes store or those digital codes you can input into the MoviesAnywhere app also offer all the extras typically available on those discs. For the vast majority of the content on streaming services, though, bonus content is basically non-existent.
Palm Springs hit Hulu in July 2020 after selling for $17,500,000.69 at the Sundance Film Festival the year previous. The film stars Andy Samberg as Nyles, a wedding guest stuck in a Groundhog Day-style timeloop. He accidentally pulls in Sarah (Cristin Milioti) and the two explore the repeating day while also trying to escape.
To check out the commentary, head over to Hulu, look up Palm Springs, and go to the Extras tab.
Among the new features brought to the World of Assassination by Hitman 3 are permanent shortcuts–doors and ladders you can unlock for quick access to handy paths through levels. Once you find a shortcut and unlock it, it’s open in all your subsequent playthroughs of a mission, no matter where you start from. These shortcuts can make it a lot easier to get to sensitive areas or to find particular items, disguises, or assassination opportunities. But in order to unlock them for future use, you’ll have to find them the first time, and they usually require a little hunting to find.
We’ve compiled a complete list of all the shortcuts scattered through Hitman 3’s six missions, as well as an explanation of how to unlock them. Note that you’ll usually need tools, so it’s always good to grab a crowbar and screwdriver to make sure you can unlock a shortcut when you get to it. You’ll also have to approach shortcuts from the long way around–all shortcut doors are one way until you’ve opened them, and shortcut ladders have to be dropped from the top. Expect to do some careful infiltration to find them all.
The easiest of the shortcuts to find is the Penthouse Ladder, because it’s right next to Carl Ingraham’s putting green in the penthouse. Get a suitable disguise for the top two floors and head out to the northwest corner of the building. Open the hatch next to the green and you’ll find a ladder that goes down to the maintenance room below–which one worker calls the “maintenance scrub.” This is actually the place to find the exploding golf ball, hidden behind the red toolbox in the corner. The shortcut gives you easy access to Ingraham’s golf gear so you can set up the assassination easily.
Ventilation Area Ladder
This ladder is also accessible from the penthouse’s lower level. Head to the opposite side of the penthouse atrium from the putting green, near where the main stairs let you come up. If you push all the way into the southeast corner, you’ll find a maintenance area filled with ventilation machinery through a door in the wall. Keep moving to the southern corner of the room, where you can unlock a ladder that will connect the penthouse to the helipad below.
Atrium Lobby Door
You’ll see this door right away when you first enter the lobby at the start of the mission, but accessing it is less obvious. To access it, head up to Level 1 and the east side of the building, near the garden. Don’t go through the security frisk that leads you up to Level 2; instead, head into the blue room behind it where guards take breaks. You’ll find a maintenance door on the east wall–with the Burg Al-Ghazali staff key card, you’ll be able to unlock it. That gives you access to a maintenance staircase. Follow it all the way down (watch out for a camera or two and a maintenance worker) to find the Atrium Lobby Door and unlock it. This is a handy shortcut for trying to complete the Suiting Attire feat, as it allows you to grab the Skydiving Suit from the Atrium and move relatively unseen to the higher floors.
The path to the Atrium Lobby Door shortcut starts higher up on Level 1–use this door to access the stairs that lead to it.You’ll find the actual shortcut at the bottom of this staircase, two levels from the door you entered through.
Helipad Ladder
Your last shortcut is on the Helipad, and since that’s not an especially large area, it’s not tough to find. Go to Level 3 and follow the hallway that leads away from the Security Room and the Server Room, toward the east side of the building. A glass door there empties out onto the Helipad, which is to the south. Immediately next to the glass door on your left is the ladder; unlock it for a quick way down to the tech area behind the art exhibit on Level 2.
Mission 2: Death In The Family (Dartmoor)
Balcony Ladder
The first shortcut is easily accessible if you do the Means, Motive, and Opportunity Mission Story (otherwise known as the Murder Mystery), as the balcony in question is connected to the murder scene. However, you’ll need a crowbar to unlock the shortcut, so make sure you’ve picked one up before heading there (look in the garden behind the Greenhouse). Enter Zachary’s Room and head out on the balcony, to your right, to find the shortcut.
Maintenance Ladder
This shortcut can carry you to the top level of Thornbridge Manor, making it easy to get access to Alexa Carlisle’s office from the ground floor. To unlock it, you need a crowbar. Go through the mansion to get up to Carlisle’s office (a bodyguard or mansion staff uniform will keep you safe here), then take the stairs on the left side of the room as you enter it. Take them almost all the way to the top and watch for a prompt that lets you jump up and grab the molding. Shimmy to your left to find an open window; climb out and you’ll find your way to the rooftop section where you can unlock the ladder.
To reach the Maintenance Ladder, start by finding a railing inside Alexa Carlisle’s office that you can shimmy along to reach an open window.The ladder itself is outside the window, giving you access to the roof.
Mission 3: Apex Predator (Berlin)
Entrance Back Door
Your first shortcut is both incredibly easy to get to and incredibly convenient once you’ve unlocked it. Start the mission as normal either in your 47 getup or as a club attendee and go through security (remember to drop illegal items to avoid a frisk). As soon as you’re through the entrance, look to your right for an area marked “Staff,” behind the office that’s immediately behind the ticket counter. You’ll find the shortcut just past the signs, and once you’ve unlocked it, you can go get the stuff you’ve dropped and avoid entry security altogether.
Biker Basement Door
An aspect of this mission that’s not immediately apparent is the fact it’s connected to a drug-making operation run by a biker gang. You’ll find their building to the north of the area. You’re considered trespassing anywhere inside their facility without a biker uniform, but you can slip in unnoticed with the Basement Door. Get to it by going into the facility’s garage and finding the staircase down near the garage door (it’s where the food delivery scooter is parked). You’ll eventually find a staircase that leads back up and to the locked door, allowing you to slip into the building unseen.
Skylight Ladder
To unlock this shortcut, you first have to get all the way up to the roof of the nuclear plant. The best way to do this is from the outside, rather than trying to go through the club itself. You can take the overpass walkway that links the two buildings to reach the rooftop, or sneak into the stairwells visible on the outsides of the buildings. Once you’re on the roof, slip past the security officers (and one ICA agent) to find an open skylight window. Climb in and down to find and unlock the ladder, which requires a crowbar.
Mission 4: End Of An Era (Chongqing)
Inner Courtyard Door
You can best access this shortcut from inside the underground facility, preferably with a security uniform on. Take the stairs up to the enclosed glass walkway on Level 0 and head left to the facility’s main entrance. This will put you out into a courtyard with two street guards blocking an alleyway entrance, and another guard with a blue beret patrolling the other alley. Follow the path with the beret guard to find the door and unlock it. You can also access this courtyard by coming down the staircase from the Southeastern Rooftop–the one with all the drones.
Facility Elevator Shaft
You need to access this shortcut early in your venture into the underground facility, before triggering the alarm by wiping the data. From the main entrance behind the dumpling shop, enter the facility and follow the grey line to the Tier 1 Security Office. Go through the door on the north end of the room to enter a locker room. Look for an elevator door that you can open in here, then climb up and use your camera to hack a ventilation shaft cover. Push through that and you’ll find the door to unlock the shortcut.
The Block Ladder
This one is in the apartment building where Hush is conducting his experiments. Head inside and make your way to Level 2. Go outside on the west side of the building and look for a ladder in the southern corner of the balcony that you can unlock, which leads down into the fenced-in courtyard below.
Mission 5: The Farewell (Mendoza)
Cellar Door
Two shortcuts actually connect to the villa basement, and are easily accessed by completing some Mendoza’s Mission Stories. Work your way through the story called The Tour, allow it to play out completely, then keep going with the Closing Statement story that unlocks at its end. You’ll need to impersonate the Samolier to get access to the wine cellar. After the meeting with Don Yates and all the Heralds of Providence, look for the Cellar Door shortcut in the northeast corner of the basement.
Maintenance Door
The second shortcut opens up access to the underground tunnel near the winery. Look for the shortcut at the south side of the villa basement. You’ll pass through another room off the winery to get to it, but it’s easy to find.
Backdoor
You need to get into the villa proper to access this shortcut. Once inside, move to the eastern edge of the map, behind the villa. You’ll see a sign warning about a cliff path. Walk or climb down the path and follow it south to its end to reach a door you can unlock, creating easy access from the party to the villa and the underground tunnels.
Mission 6: Untouchable (Carpathian Mountains)
The shortcuts in Mission 6 aren’t really shortcuts, since you’re just making your way forward from the back of a train to the front of it. Unlocking these doors instead gives you access to rooms filled with weapons and tools.
Passenger Car Door
You’ll find this shortcut locked, but the means to enter and open it is pretty clear. Go past the shortcut into the dining car and climb out a window. You can’t reach the shortcut room by shimmying along the side of the train; you have to climb up to the roof and find a path to climb back down. Look for a gap in the ice as you make your way back that will allow you to climb back down and slip in through a window to unlock the shortcut.
Container Door
Accessing the last shortcut in this level is a bit more involved. You’ll need to find a yellow valve to open the big green container, but to get at it, you’ll need either a rusty nail ro pick a lock, or to fight your way through two guards. If you’ve got a tool, open the door past the cargo container and take the valve off the box in front of you. If not, use the ladder to get to the other side of the car, then enter and take out the two guards inside. A silenced gun will drop the guard close to the door without the other one realizing he’s down. Use the valve to open the container and get inside to unlock the shortcut.
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The MonsterVerse is Legendary’s shared universe which positions the secret government agency Monarch at the center of an eco-system of monsters, or “Titans” as they call them, both new and classic. And now the latest chapter in this saga is coming with Godzilla vs. Kong (watch the trailer here), which promises to pit not only the two titular Titans against each other but some new monsters as well, including maybe, just maybe… Mechagodzilla!
Click through the slideshow, or read on, for all the monsters we know of so far… But watch out for spoilers for all of the MonsterVerse movies through Godzilla: King of the Monsters!
Rogue One’s Gareth Edwards directed the somber and grim opening chapter to the MonsterVerse, 2014’s Godzilla, which of course reintroduced the titular monster to the world. Starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Bryan Cranston, Godzilla features the titan emerging from a long slumber to stop two rampaging parasitic monsters from mating.
King Kong
Kong: Skull Island, from The Kings of Summer’s Jordan Vogt-Roberts, features a more adventurous tone than Godzilla ground zero, and stars Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L Jackson, John Goodman, and Brie Larson as members of an expedition filled with soldiers and scientists who travel to a mysterious island in the Pacific… where they of course find King Kong himself. This stands as the MonsterVerse’s Kong reboot/restart, 12 years after Peter Jackson remade King Kong (a film that also featured Skull Island).
M.U.T.O.s
Okay, so Godzilla’s M.U.T.O.s (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms) probably won’t marquee their own movie, but these prehistoric parasites continue to wreak havoc on human civilization as they’re drawn to man-made radiation. They seem to love to trample anyone and everything in their path. Two unnamed M.U.T.O.s (a male and a female pair) appear in the first Godzilla, while a second female debuts in the third film, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, heeding the clarion call of King Ghidorah. King of the Monsters also phased out the M.U.T.O. name, instead referring to these massive beasts as Titans.
Skullcrawlers
Scavenging Skull Island are pesky pack-hunting predators called Skullcrawlers (a term coined by John C. Reilly’s stranded islander Marlow) who generally make life miserable for both man and beast as an intelligent, burrowing, bullet-proof species of crawling carnivore lizard creatures.
First heralded by a fun Kong: Skull Island Easter egg, the iconic Mothra is a creature that dates back to 1961 when she (yes, it’s a she!) starred in her own solo movie before becoming a recurring monster in the Godzilla films. A massive psychic Moth, who comes with her own tiny translating priestesses in the original films, Mothra is one of the most powerful beasts in the MonsterVerse. She plays a major role in King of the Monsters, helping Godzilla battle his rivals and ultimately sacrificing her life to give her partner the energy boost he needs.
King Ghidorah
Also seen in the Skull Island post-credit scene, and making a sinister showing in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, is King Ghidorah – the three-headed cinematic arch-nemesis of both Godzilla and Mothra who dates back to 1964. King Ghidorah is the main baddie of King of the Monsters, where he’s revealed to be the main rival to Godzilla at the top of the monster food chain. Ghidorah is also capable of attracting other Titans and bending them to his will. Though Ghidorah is ultimately defeated by a charged-up Godzilla in King of the Monsters, a post-credits sequence shows Charles Dance’s Col. Jonah purchasing one of the beast’s severed heads for some nefarious purpose that is yet to be determined…
Rodan
Dating back to 1956, and the third monster entering the fray in King of the Monsters, is Rodan – the famous flying Kaiju based on the prehistoric Pteranodon. Faster than supersonic jets and able to produce destructive winds and shockwaves with his wings, Rodan definitely has the air and speed advantage in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, though Mothra eventually gains the upper hand.
Other Titans
King of the Monsters introduces a number of minor new Titans, all of which are original creations rather than adaptations of existing Toho monsters. These new Titans include Scylla, the crab-like Titan who emerges from underneath a Texan oil field, Methuselah, a massive, armored creature and Behemoth, a huge, mammalian Titan who’s basically a combination of a woolly mammoth and a sloth.
Several other new Titans also have cameo appearances in King of the Monsters, where they appear on computer screens rising from their collective slumber to join King Ghidorah. These monsters include Abaddon, Baphomet, Bunyip, Leviathan, Mokele-Mbembe, Sargon, Tiamat and Typhoon. These Titans play a bigger role in the film’s novelization.
Mechagodzilla…?
This is an educated guess at this point, but it sure looks like the infamous robotic version of Godzilla known as Mechagodzilla could be showing up in Godzilla vs. Kong. There’s a moment in the trailer where a mob of panicked people are running from a giant monster attack, and a pair of glowing red eyes can be spotted looming above the crowd. There’s also a shot in the trailer of a computer screen that seems to display the schematics for a mechanized Titan. Indeed, it’s not unreasonable to consider the possibility that the whole reason Kong and Godzilla are fighting is because Mechagodzilla is actually the creature that has been destroying cities (while covered in a replica of Godzilla’s scaly exterior) but everyone has been blaming Godzilla for the devastation.
Will this come to be? And what lies beyond Godzilla vs. Kong? Well, there are clearly plenty of Kaiju to kick around — King of the Monsters reveals that there are 17 known Titans to date — which means more skyscrapers to topple and monuments to mangle. We can’t wait…
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Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association (TCA). Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.
Hitman 3 has its fair share of locked doors to open and safes to crack, but if you’re observant and persistent enough, you should be able to find the codes to access them. But if you need a helping hand and would rather spare yourself the time required to discover their codes organically, then we’ve compiled all the code solutions to the game’s various locked doors, safes, and keypads for your reference.
There are quite a few locked doors and safes keeping you from getting to your objectives in Dubai. Fortunately, the majority of them are repeated codes.
Staff Meeting Room Door Code: 4706
Atrium Door Code: 4706
Level 2 Security Office Safe Combination: 6927
Level 3 Security Office Safe Combination: 6927
Penthouse Guest Room Safe Combination: 7465
Dartmoor
While the Dartmoor Mission Story titled Means, Motive, And Opportunity leads you directly to the case file objective, there are other ways to get your hands on this elusive document. One way involves getting into Alexa’s office and nabbing it yourself by opening her safe. If you’re savvy enough to break into her office and find the safe, then all you need to do is enter the combination 1975 to get the file.
Berlin
Berlin has but a single safe you can find and access. It’s located on Level 2 in Rolf Hirschmuller’s office, which you can find in the biker area. The combination is 1989–the year the Berlin Wall fell. You’ll learn that historical tidbit if you listen to the thieving tech staffer talking just outside the office.
Chongqing
There are many locked doors in Chongqing, but lucky for you, they’re only sealed by two possible codes: 0118 and 2552. Below we pinpoint the doors that each of these codes unlocks.
Container Door Code To ICA Facility Entrance: 0118
ICA Apartment Door Code: 0118
Laundromat Door Code: 0118
Benchmark Lab Staircase Door Code: 2552
Therapy Room Door Code: 2552
Arcade Door Code: 2552
Mendoza
You’ll need these codes if you’re looking to nab some of the more flashy, over-the-top assassination challenges in Mendoza. The first is involved with the To Loyalty challenge, while the second helps you complete the Domestic Disturbance challenge.
Wine Fridge Vault Code: 1945
Villa Basement Door Code: 2006
Carpathian Mountains
This code is for the door locked by a keypad that you’ll encounter not long after starting the mission. The solution to this one is rather simple, as the code is literally written on the wall to your left. But don’t worry, we won’t judge you if you searched up this guide to find this code. So take it, the solution is 1979.
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The news was first reported by Deadline and confirmed by Green in a post on Twitter. In her tweet, she said that 2006’s Tomb Raider: Legend is her favorite “classic era” game in the series and 2015’s Rise of the Tomb Raider is tied with 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider as her favorite in the current series.
My fav from classic era is Legend & from survival era it’s a tie between Rise & Shadow. So I’m thinking something like:
Green is not just the showrunner behind Lovecraft Country but also wrote every episode of the show’s first season and directed an episode. Green hasn’t written or directed a feature-length movie yet, but Deadline said Green recently wrote a movie, The Mother, which Netflix won after a heated competition with rival studios.
There’s no word on why Wheatley isn’t involved in the project anymore. The filmmaker has kept busy by directing a horror movie during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Empire. That movie is set for release in 2021. Variety says that Wheatley is also set to direct The Meg 2 with Jason Statham.
Details are slim regarding the Tomb Raider sequel. All that’s known at this time is that Vikander will reprise her role as Lara Croft from the first movie.
The first Tomb Raider movie with Vikander was released in 2018. Captain Marvel screenwriter Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Small Axe writer Alastair Siddons wrote the script that was directed by Roar Uthaug. IGN gave the movie a 5.5 out of 10 in our review. We said Tomb Raider “fails to develop interesting characters or motives but at least offers viewers some fun action.”
GameStop’s stock is acting strangely, still. It’s gone even higher after last week’s surge drove GameStop’s value skyrocketing to record levels. And although the week is still young, it shows this unexpected rise is, rather than a result of anything the company’s done, a savvy bit of investing, at least in the short-term.
The interest in GameStop’s irregular stock activity has thrust the Reddit group seemingly driving the surge into the spotlight. Popularly described as “4chan with a Bloomberg Terminal,” r/WallStreetBets is a wild west of stock investing “advice” and memes. And the pearl-clutching establishment has certainly painted this group as a rogue troll army messing with the established practices of Wall Street.
IGN has reached out and spoken to several r/WallStreetBets day traders to find out more about this group that has thrust the struggling video game retailer into the spotlight.
What Is Going on with GameStop Stock?
GameStop stock (traded as $GME) is on the up-and-up. Prices for a single piece of stock peaked today at around $145. Compare that to a year ago, when prices for the biggest video game brick-and-mortar retailer hovered around $15 but went as low as $3 a share.
Some Wall Street investors bet that GameStop would continue to struggle and began short-selling the company, a strategy where an investor borrows stock of that particular company — in this case, GameStop — and sells it in the hopes that prices for the stock will continue to drop. If that happens, they can buy back the stock for even cheaper and keep the difference as a profit.
But instead of going down, prices are going up, and this is bad for short sellers who have to buy back the stock they borrowed. Redditors on r/WallStreetBets saw the short early and moved in to buy GameStop stock early and cheap, creating a short squeeze.
Short sellers rushing to buy while minimizing losses created a rush to buy GameStop stock, which in turn drove up prices. A vicious cycle, if you will.
Who Is Squeezing Wall Street?
In speaking with traders on r/WallStreetBets, it’s evident that these traders are not wolves of Wall Street, but hobbyists who trade on the side and have either a clear-eyed or irreverent view of the stock market.
Three traders from r/WallStreetBets IGN spoke to say that they are not full-time traders, while a fourth says they’re still relatively new to trading. And all three also joined the community fairly recently with the longest member following the subreddit about a year ago.
“I had seen the subreddit in some YouTube video after I got into trading but was only doing my own thing until this GME stuff really started to pop off and I bought in,” one trader, who asked to go by Ike for privacy reasons, tells IGN.
Source: Google.
Ike bought GME stock when it was around $30 and says he spent about $600 on his position. He says his option is now worth around five times that value but is still waiting before selling.
When asked why they went in on GME, Ike says that it took “some convincing” and due diligence but that it was “mostly FOMO [or, Fear of Missing Out].”
Another trader named Tj says they invest “on the side for fun,” while working as a full-time engineer at a major tech company. Their option is worth six-figures after going in at a buying price of around $18 per stock.
In keeping with their 4chan with a Bloomberg Terminal mantra, these traders prefer memeing their way through Wall Street, using terms like FOMO or YOLO [You Only Live Once] to explain away their investment decisions.
One investor named Sage says they’ve only been following r/WallStreetBets for “around two months” and that investing is a “side hustle.” For “about five minutes” Sage’s GME options were worth $33,000, based on an initial investment of $1000. Though they chose not to sell.
The biggest success story is someone who goes by u/DeepFu*kingValue on WallStreetBets who regularly updates the subreddit on the price of their option which is currently valued at $13 million.
The energy the subreddit brings into trading can only be described as chaotic. One thread by user u/dumbledoreRothIRA is titled, “I’M NOT SELLING THIS UNTIL AT LEAST $1000+ GME” with an additional expletive and some rocket ship emojis for good measure.
The subreddit is also claiming a “victory” against hedge fund Melvin Capital Management, a short-seller that the Wall Street Journal reports is getting an outside investment to help stabilize the fund after a variety of short bets fell through. One of which was Melvin’s bet against GameStop.
GameStop, a Meme?
One reason why the GameStop stock situation is so absurd is that for the past three years, GameStop has been struggling as a business. A brick-and-mortar video game retailer, GameStop has not been able to compete with digital retailers like Amazon as well as the growing trend of customers buying primarily digital versions of games through portals like Steam, PSN, or Xbox Live.
When IGN spoke with GameStop’s chief customer officer Frank Hamlin back in 2019, he explained that “As a specialty retailer, we are linked at the hip to this category of video games. We compete with a bunch of generalist retailers who don’t have the same seasonality as we do because they sell paper towels and loaves of bread and they can use video games as a loss leader to sell a loaf of bread.”
But GameStop is a mainstay in the public gaming consciousness, and the brand recognition has driven WallStreetBets to embrace the struggling brand. Whereas investors on Wall Street proper saw a struggling retailer, WallStreetBets saw an underdog and piece of gaming childhood.
Sage says that while “Reddit Hype” factored into their decision to go in on GME, so did “childhood memories.” Meanwhile, Tj tells IGN that their non-retirement investing is done with additional income. “So I figured might as well throw it into the latest meme and let it ride,” they said.
Another trader who spoke with IGN named Branyan said that knowing GameStop helped them go in on their own position.
“I’ve done my fair share of shopping there,” says Branyan. “It definitely did make a difference that I knew the business opposed to going in blind. I’ve trusted them with my business so I should be able to trust them with my trades.”
Ike says they were very aware of GameStop both from their childhood and recent news. “Like most my age [GameStop] used to be a place I’d go often for games as a kid, and I knew about its decline as I’ve watched the closure of one [of the stores] close to me.”
One side-effect of the GameStop Stock squeeze is the increased scrutiny on r/WallStreetBets. Mainstream and finance-focused publications are covering the subreddit in recent days — and not in a way the community finds helpful.
“News coverage has been unfair and misleading, often referring to WSB as a single entity that makes decisions for millions of people,” says Ike. “But take only a glance at the sub and you’ll see just how wrong that is, [it’s] full of people taking all sides [on an investment] and people posting random sh*t half the time.”
Tj says they’re worried that the media coverage could harm inexperienced investors “jumping into stocks without researching.” They believe that “a lot of people will lose more than they can afford to,” because of the notoriety.
“Well to tell you the truth [the media coverage] is very worrisome,” Branyan adds. “Many subreddits have been shut down in the past and wiped out due to getting negative media coverage. The coverage we’re getting now seems to want to suggest that we are attempting to manipulate the market as a collective single organism. This isn’t the case. We are just a bunch of investors who like to chat about what we do.”
“People make huge YOLOs and succeed sometimes and people like to see that. That is what you’ll find at the base of WSB. People making it big or losing it all trying. We aren’t trying to manipulate the market, we’re trying to go big or die trying. Each and every one of us.”
As for their GME options, the investors say they’ll eventually sell and hopefully make a profit.
“I’ll sell when u/deepfu*kingvalue sells,” Sage says.
In an era where the streaming wars are only growing more cutthroat all the time, big franchises matter. WarnerMedia is bringing one of its biggest weapons to bear on HBO Max, as we’ve learned the company is in the very early stages of developing a Harry Potter series for its flagship streaming service. We don’t yet know what the series is about or when in the Potter timeline it’ll be set, but at long last, Harry Potter is headed to TV. And that’s exactly what the franchise needs at this point.
Much like how Star Wars has thrived thanks to shows like The Mandalorian and The Clone Wars, the Harry Potter franchise could easily find its second wind on the small screen. Read on to find out why streaming TV, not theatrical blockbusters, is the way forward for Harry Potter.
Fantastic Beasts: Time For a Change
Despite the original Harry Potter series having concluded ten years ago in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Warner Bros. is still keeping the franchise alive on the big screen. So far, two films in the Fantastic Beasts prequel series have been released, with a third currently in production and creator JK Rowling hinting at a five-film series overall. Plus, many fans are assuming it’s only a matter of time before Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, a stage play that continues the saga several decades down the road, will eventually be adapted as a feature film.
Still, it’s hard to argue the franchise hasn’t seen some of the wind go out of its magical sails in recent years. The Fantastic Beasts movies are neither the critical nor commercial smashes the core Potter movies were. 2018’s Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald currently ranks as the lowest-grossing Harry Potter movies to date, as well as being the only one to earn a “rotten” rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It doesn’t help that the franchise is so strongly associated with behind-the-scenes controversy nowadays, whether it’s Johnny Depp’s legal troubles or Rowling’s unfortunate history of transphobic writing.
Warners is still moving forward with the third Fantastic Beasts movie, even going so far as to replace Depp with Mads Mikkelsen as the villainous Grindelwald. Production finally began on the untitled third movie in September 2020, with a planned release date of July 15, 2022. But as for whether the fourth and fifth movies will still materialize, that remains to be seen. Given the bad mojo surrounding the series and the diminishing box office returns, Warner Bros. may opt to cut their losses and give the Potter franchise a fresh, clean slate. And what better way to do that than pivot from film to television?
It’s a pivot that’s certainly worked in the Star Wars franchise’s favor. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is generally regarded as an underwhelming conclusion to Disney’s sequel trilogy. Nor was Solo: A Star Wars Story a major critical or commercial success. By comparison, The Mandalorian is the first Star Wars project of the Disney era that’s managed to cross party lines and please the vast majority of fans. While it’s tougher to gauge the success of streaming projects without hard figures, the widespread critical acclaim and the massive popularity of Mandalorian-themed merchandise both suggest the series has been a big hit for Lucasfilm and Disney. And with spinoffs like Rangers of the New Republic, Ahsoka and The Book of Boba Fett in the works, it’s clear Disney is going all-in with Star Wars TV projects even while the next movie is years away.
It’s not hard to imagine the Potter franchise finding similar success shifting away from the big screen and toward streaming TV. Both the Fantastic Beasts movies and the Cursed Child play have their detractors. A TV series offers Warner Bros. a chance to wipe the slate and start fresh without all of the baggage of those other projects. Handled properly, the first Harry Potter series could inspire a whole wave of spinoffs just as The Mandalorian has. This isn’t to suggest the franchise can immediately shed the various controversies surrounding it, but it would be a start.
A Wide Open Timeline
There are many reasons the Harry Potter books struck such a chord with readers, but the massive, fully realized fantasy world they reveal is certainly among them. The seven books take place roughly over the course of seven years, as Harry becomes inducted into the Wizarding World and makes his way through Hogwarts. Even though the series ends on a definitive note, as Harry conquers his nemesis Voldemort and frees the world from magical tyranny, it’s clear we’ve only seen a small piece of a much larger tapestry. The magical community existed for centuries before Harry came along, and it will continue to exist long after he’s become nothing more than a snoozing painting on a castle wall.
There’s so much of the Wizarding World left to cover, and even the Fantastic Beasts movies are barely scratching the surface in that regard. Many fans would love to see a Marauders series – a show that covers the youthful exploits of James Potter, Sirius Black and Remus Lupin and shows a very different side of Severus Snape. That premise alone justifies a streaming series – one where each season could chronicle another year at Hogwarts. In the process, fans would find out what it was like to live during Voldemort’s original rise to power. Perhaps even more importantly, the series could transform Harry’s parents from ghostly mentor figures to actual, fully realized characters.
That’s just one option on the table. The series could also be set after the Potter movies but before the events of Cursed Child, chronicling Harry’s journey toward becoming an Auror and his role in rebuilding a government brought to its knees by the Death Eaters. That would also provide an opportunity to introduce new threats and villains who aren’t members of the Voldemort or Grindelwald clans.
The series could even take the opportunity to veer far away from the characters and locales of the movies. The Fantastic Beasts movies have taken a more multicultural approach, with the first taking place largely in New York, the second in Paris and the third reportedly in Rio de Janeiro. Even so, these films only have so much room to showcase these new locations amid all the emphasis on Newt Scamander and friends. There would be a real novelty in a series that sheds light on what it’s like to attend wizarding school in the US or Japan or Kenya.
In short, there’s a reason they call it the “Wizarding World,” and there’s only so much Warners can do to capitalize on that world with one theatrical movie released every few years.
Characters Over Spectacle
If there’s one reason for the Potter series to pivot to a TV series over movies, it’s the characters. Fans need well-rounded heroes they can identify with, or else all the wand-waving and beast-catching is just empty spectacle. That’s arguably the greatest flaw weighing down the Fantastic Beasts series compared to its predecessor. It’s difficult to connect with bumbling collector Newt Scamander and his friends in the same way it was so easy with Harry, Ron and Hermione. It doesn’t really help that the Fantastic Beasts movies are based on what’s basically an in-universe zoology book. The source material has no real narrative or cast of characters to adapt, so it’s the titular beasts themselves who tend to steal the show.
A Harry Potter series would have a valuable opportunity to really dig in with these characters in a way none of the movies have been able to do. As faithful as the core Harry Potter movies are, there’s inevitably wide swaths of material that gets cut when you try to condense the story of an entire school year into a two or three-hour film. Even in the books, supporting characters like Cho Chang, Dean Thomas, the Patil sisters and the extended Weasley family aren’t terribly well developed. But in the movies, they’re often little more than background cameo roles.
There’s an argument to be made for treating the HBO Max series as a full-fledged Harry Potter reboot and exploring the events of the books in far greater depth. That doesn’t seem the most likely option, given the enduring popularity of the movies and WarnerMedia’s habit of using HBO Max as a platform fr spinoffs of blockbuster movies (Dune: The Sisterhood, Gotham PD, Peacemaker, etc.). Still, it would certainly be an interesting move. Nor is there reason to worry about the series’ ability to replicate the scale and special effects quality of the movies. If The Mandalorian has proven anything, it’s that it’s no longer cost-prohibitive to tackle truly cinematic stories in a small screen format.
A true Harry Potter reboot is likely still much farther down the pipeline for Warners. But whenever and wherever the HBO Max series takes place, the hope is it’ll be able to flesh out its cast to a much greater degree. We’ve gotten more than enough movies about Chosen Ones battling the forces of darkness. What about the other 99% of characters who make their way in the Wizarding World without the benefit of prophecies or the watchful eye of Albus Dumbledore? Who else has magic worth conjuring and a story worth telling? It’s about time we found that out.
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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.
