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2021 marks the 25th anniversary of Lara Croft’s video game debut, and current Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics plans to celebrate with a year’s worth of events.

“25 years is such a major milestone so we really want to celebrate with the community as we look back on Tomb Raider’s legacy,” Crystal Dynamics community and social media manager Neha Nair said in a video that the official Tomb Raider account tweeted.

Starting in February, each month of 2021 will be themed around a different Tomb Raider game and will feature developer interviews, cosplay livestreams, and fan art. The original 1996 Tomb Raider game developed by Core Design will kick off the celebrations, with Crystal Dynamics hinting at a reveal of what lies in store for the franchise and its future.

Outside of video games, Tomb Raider is expanding once again on both film and television. A sequel to the 2018 film starring Alicia Vikander is in development and will be helmed by Lovecraft Country showrunner Misha Green, while Netflix also announced that a Tomb Raider anime series will pick up after the events of the last game in the series, 2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

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In the midst of a stock surge that has taken the financial world by storm, the popular stock-trading site Robinhood has restricted trades of the key stocks at the center of the story. Following the restrictions, the stock value of both GameStop and AMC have plummeted by roughly the same amount, suggesting Robinhood’s move could have had an impact.

GameStop stock has dropped more than 50% in just a few hours since the restrictions began. AMC is similarly down by roughly 50%, though it had a much lower starting price at market open this morning. At different points today GameStop was as high as $470 and reached a low of $131. As of the time of writing it has recovered slightly, to $196.

This comes as the Robinhood app itself is surging in popularity, along with Reddit where the trades are being organized. Robinhood has issued a statement on its policy, chalking it up to monitoring for market volatility.

“We continuously monitor the markets and make changes where necessary,” the company state. “In light of recent volatility, we are restricting transactions for certain securities to position closing only, including $AMC, $BB, $BBBY, $EXPR, $GME, $KOSS, $NAKD and $NOK.”

This follows a similar stoppage from TD Ameritrade.

There has been some calling action to be taken as the value of GameStop and AMC inflate to much higher values than normal. This is being organized by the WallStreetBets subreddit, which is intentionally taking on hedge funds and short-sellers. The subreddit briefly went private during the whole debacle. The subreddit has moved on to AMC in recent days, and the entire situation has even garnered a response from the White House.

Industry analyst Michael Pachter weighed in regarding the halting of trades, coming out against it because the Reddit users are not relying on “material nonpublic information” or making false claims. Those factors would make them potentially guilty of insider trading, but instead the entire scheme was hatched on a public forum where anyone can view it. He said restricting their access is “problematic.”

The calls for action and others have also been met with criticism, as it’s perceived as a move to protect hedge funds from losing out. This has drawn comparisons to the Wall Street bailout. The Robinhood app is currently getting review-bombed, having gotten 100,000 1-star reviews in just over an hour.

The move has also gained criticism from some members of Congress. Rashida Tlaib said that blocking the ability to trade is “stealing millions of dollars from their users” to protect hedge funds, while Ted Lieu said it looks like “fear of too much profit going to ordinary investors.” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized the move as “unacceptable” and said she would support a hearing in her capacity as a member of the Financial Services Committee.

The story has been gaining attention throughout the financial world in recent days, leading to a surge of popularity in all of the surrounding applications. As analyst Daniel Ahmad pointed out, the two most downloaded apps right now are Robinhood and Reddit.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Like all great short stories, Olija manages to do more with less. Its characters are roughly drawn and very pixelated, but they build strong bonds that resonate and create real stakes. The caves, ruins, and dark corners of the world exude an ominous, foreboding mood that permeates every turn. And the action, a mix of quick-moving combat and light puzzle-platforming, steadily and consistently finds new ways to keep you on your toes. Olija takes exactly as much time as it needs to tell its story and show you everything in its bag of tricks.

Olija follows Faraday, a shipwrecked lord trapped on a hostile chain of islands called Terraphage. Facing all sorts of magic, dark oozing blobs, and people who want him dead, the lost lord seems doomed, but he quickly finds a weapon to turn his fortune: a legendary magic harpoon that he can throw and either teleport to its location or summon back to him. To get home and, optionally, save his crew, Faraday explores the islands of Terraphage, defeats a hidden evil, saves a queen–you know, hero stuff.

Though it boils down to a clichéd hero’s quest at the most essential level, Olija teases a lot of narrative out of a small amount of exposition. Faraday has a small retinue of recurring companions and acquaintances he meets on his journey, including a ferryman who brings him from island to island and shipwrecked sailors of Oaktide, a floating shantytown. While Faraday is silent, his companions speak to him, and you can sense the bond that forms between them. Their spoken tone softens and they grow more familiar as Faraday integrates into their lives. Those connections anchor Faraday’s journey with a human connection that resonates beyond the plot, and gives you a reason to see things through.

These details are doled out incrementally as you complete each level, moving the plot and the world forward with each step. Like Faraday himself, the story moves at the same pace as you do, without injecting unnecessary downtime. As Faraday’s legend grows, Oaktide goes from a ruined raft to a thriving village with more villagers who have more things to say. Olija packs so much importance into its little details; from the way the Oaktide sailors dress to how the ferryman’s tone of voice shifts, changes over time create the sense that this world and its people have substance, because they are capable of growth.

So much of that comes from Olija’s extremely detailed visual style. Though reminiscent of early PC games at a glance–notably, the characters only have facial features in cutscenes–every character and environment has rich details, from hanging skeletons of shipwrecked sailors and dirty wooden cages to ornate architecture and shelves full of old books in varying degrees of disrepair. Likewise, there’s incredible nuance to the game’s animation, which brings the world to life. The silhouette of a man hunched over and weeping becomes a sympathetic portrait when you see how his shoulders shake. And, of course, the animation ensures that the combat looks and feels smooth every time Faraday’s harpoon leaves his hand.

Faraday is the protagonist, but the harpoon is really the star of the game. It’s a melee and long-distance weapon that grants you broad movement and combat powers. In a fight, you can quickly mash out a flurry of attacks at one enemy, then throw the spear at the next one, teleport to them, and knock them out. Throwing the spear across a room to an open space lets you dodge and avoid getting overwhelmed.

The combat is as precise as you want it to be. Zipping from enemy to enemy with the harpoon is precise and snappy. You also find a series of secondary weapons, including a sword and a crossbow, which give you a larger array of more powerful attack options. From very early on, you can clear a room full of enemies without getting touched if you’re smart and careful. That said, you have more than health and firepower to bulldoze your way through most standard encounters. Your enemies don’t employ much strategy when approaching you and are easily sent flying with a combo.

There are a couple of boss encounters that do push your teleporting and fighting skills, which show that the harpoon mechanics could support a more demanding (and satisfying) experience. One dungeon trades a boss encounter for a sequence where a horde of men chase you out of a cave, forcing you to use your harpoon creatively to avoid them while protecting yourself. Another fight, a duel against someone with similar abilities, forces you to think on your feet and use your full range of skills far more efficiently than any other encounter. While knocking enemies around wildly is satisfying in its own right, these highly challenging moments are the game’s most compelling and original–though they also left me wishing the game would push me (and itself) to the fullest more often.

The harpoon doubles as the centerpiece of Olija’s many puzzles. Terraphage is broken up into discrete, explorable areas, which segue into more linear dungeons. Both types of areas are chock-full of navigation puzzles, which range from simply throwing your harpoon off-screen to catch a hookable blob and find a hidden collectible to more complex puzzles that require you race through timed doors, power up machinery by transferring electricity through the harpoon, and make multiple spear throws quickly and accurately to cross long gaps. Like the combat, these puzzles aren’t going to tie your brain in knots: A little trial and error will get you through any room, mandatory or optional. Still, Olija introduces new mechanics and applications for them right up until its final boss sequence. While never fully tested, your brain continues to be teased from start to finish. And fooling around with the harpoon turns each momentary detour into a little obstacle course, and the world into a playground.

Olija’s best asset, truly, is its brevity. Its story is impeccably paced. Its mechanics never wear out from overuse. From start to finish, it finds new ways to gently goad you into using the harpoon in different ways, until it says its piece. I was taken with how emotionally resonant and mechanically pleasing it could be in such a short time. Succinct and satisfying is a rare combination, and it makes Olija a rare treat.

With WandaVision now streaming on Disney+, fans are seeing a side of Vision (Paul Bettany) they hadn’t been introduced to before–one that happens to be a fumbling sitcom husband who stumbles through multiple decades of TV styles. Now, however, we’re learning that a different take on Vision almost made it to the big screen in Avengers: Age of Ultron. What was so different? We’ll let Bettany explain.

“I know that Joss Whedon apparently really, really wanted the rendition of him, when Vision first is born, before he was clothed, he was like, ‘He’s gotta have a penis,'” the actor recalled during an appearance on Lights, Camera, Barstool podcast. “And everyone–[Marvel Studios boss] Kevin [Feige] and [producer] Louis [D’Esposito], I mean everybody–was like, ‘I don’t know Joss, I mean… I’m not sure.'”

According to Bettany, Whedon countered with, “‘He has to have a penis! I want to see some drawings of penises.'”

And thus, the drawings were commissioned. That’s right, concept art of Vision with a penis was created and might still exist somewhere. “Actually, somewhere is a rendition of Vision’s birth with these penises,” the actor said. “And they put them all up on the wall and then they went in and they sat down and Joss went, ‘Yeah, I’m 100% wrong. I don’t need to see any of these.”

At the very least, we can be glad that version of Vision’s birth doesn’t exist as a deleted scene. After all, do you really want to see Vision walking around with his junk out while the Avengers and Ultron tear apart Sokovia? Yeah, neither do we.

New episodes of WandaVision are released Fridays on Disney+.

Jared Leto’s latest character has a thirst for blood. Of course, we’re not referring to the serial killer he portrays in his brand new Netflix film, The Little Things. We’re talking about Morbius, the character he plays in the film of the same name, who he says was a difficult character to portray in a new interview in Variety’s Actors on Actors series.

“It’s a big, fun movie filled with action. It’s a brilliant doctor, a researcher, who starts off trying to find a cure for a disease that he has and about 1,000 other people in the world have. I was interested in the role because he goes on this journey from dying to finding a cure for this disease and becoming incredibly healthy, and then having things change in a way that he becomes monstrous. So it’s a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde, which is of course a classic role.”

Leto is best known for his character roles, like the transgender character Rayon from 2013’s Dallas Buyer’s Club, who became a flashpoint for questions about transgender representation in Hollywood. In an interview with actor John David Washington, Leto explained the challenges unique to the character and to starring in a Marvel film.

“[Morbius] was hard for me in some way, because I’m not used to playing roles that are a bit closer to who I am, day in and day out. Dr. Michael Morbius is a little closer to the way that I talk and the way that I behave,” Leto explained.

Leto called acting in a Marvel movie “a pressure cooker,” as well. “You have a clock ticking. They’re expensive films. And so all the decisions and the time to make those decisions are a little bit more heated and so it can be a little more stressful. I think it’s common with these big movies, you don’t really start with a gem of a script,” said the actor, who played the Joker in 2016’s Suicide Squad. “You start with a hope and a dream and an idea of something, and you all try to work as hard as you can, in this given amount of time, to make it as good as it can be. And I think it’s the first time I’ve ever starred in a big movie like this in my entire career, so it was new territory. I generally hide out in the shadows.”

In the film, Leto plays biochemist Michael Morbius, a scientist with a rare blood disease. Morbius gives himself an experimental treatment that combines his DNA with that of a bat, and in the process gives himself a horrifying new look and many of the same powers and weaknesses as a classic vampire. Morbius the Living Vampire began life as a Spider-Man villain, but has transitioned to an anti-hero in the manner of Venom. The film is part of Sony’s growing “Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters.” After multiple delays, Morbius is currently scheduled to hit theaters on January 21, 2022.