Olympus cameras may have been consigned to history, but their spirit is expected to live on with the launch of the first OM System camera – and that symbolic event has just been given a likely launch date.
As spotted by 43 Rumors , a new teaser image from OM Digital Solutions – which is the new owner of Olympus's camera division – shows its upcoming camera on a poster for the CP+ 2022 camera trade show. The show kicks off on February 22, but OM Digital Solutions' first talks are scheduled to take place on February 24, making that the likely launch date of its first post-Olympus camera.
If you're unfamiliar with the Olympus story, the company's camera division was sold to a Japanese investment fund called JIP in June 2020. After that deal was completed, we saw the arrival of the Olympus PEN E-P7 . But in October 2021, it was announced that the classic Olympus name would be abandoned, with new launches instead bearing the new OM System sub-brand.
Since then, we've seen the launch of the OM System M.Zuiko 20mm f/1.4 Pro lens, but no new cameras. That looks likely to change, though, on February 24 from around 1am EST / 6am GMT / 5pm AEST, when OM Digital Solutions is hosting a talk at the CP+ 2022 show called 'The New Dawn of OM System'. This will be followed a couple of hours later by a talk titled 'The new OM System you want to know'.
So far, all we know about this first OM System camera is that it'll be a Micro Four Thirds model with interchangeable lenses that'll apparently bring improved image quality "through the use of computational photographic technology". The first teaser image also suggests it'll be a relatively advanced model, with a design that's closer to the Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark III than the brand's more classic PEN series. It looks like we won't have to wait long for the full official details.
Analysis: a big month for Micro Four Thirds cameras
February is going to be a big month for Micro Four Thirds cameras, which have been left behind by larger-sensor formats in recent years. But with this new OM System camera expected to be joined soon by the Panasonic GH6 , it's going to feel a bit like 2016 again in the camera world – and that's a good thing for choice.
At one time, it seemed that smartphones had killed smaller sensor formats like Micro Four Thirds. In fact, "rapid market shrink caused by the evolution of smartphones" was the main reason Olympus gave for selling its camera division in 2020. But smaller sensor formats still bring advantages over both phones and full-frame cameras, and this first OM System camera is promising to capitalize on those.
Alongside compact form factors, one of the main benefits of small sensors is that it's easier to apply additional features like in-body image stabilization and computational processing to them, compared to full-frame. Olympus cameras were known for pioneering software-based tricks like 'Live ND' well before the Google Pixel 4 's computational tricks, and OM Digital Solutions is promising to build on this groundwork with its first OM System camera.
This concept was intriguing enough for us to include the unnamed OM System camera on our recent list of the most exciting cameras of 2022 . That said, it still isn't clear how much appetite there is for a standalone camera with computational photography tricks – after all, the original Olympus camera division wasn't able to survive despite creating innovative software features.
As 43 Rumors notes, we also don't yet know if OM Digital Solutions' announcements at CP+ 2022 will be more teasers ahead of a launch later in the year, or a full unveiling. But photographers and videographers who are still interested in the prospect of a small hybrid camera with a huge range of lenses should certainly stay tuned on February 24 to find out.
Elden Ring doesn't have the best PC port but it literally doesn't matter
Elden Ring has a bit of a reputation on PC already as being kind of a technical mess . We've covered it extensively, but the long and short of it is that the game doesn't support high refresh rates, ultrawide aspect ratios, and is prone to frame drops. None of this is ideal, with especially the latter issue causing problems in a game that's already so difficult.
But you know what? I don't care about any of that.
I will always be the first person to complain when I have to play a game that doesn't support ultrawide monitors - it's actually the reason I haven't played Psychonauts 2 yet - but Elden Ring is such a good game, that I powered through the giant black bars on either side of the screen anyway. And I'm about to do it again in New Game+.
A hint of the old days
I'm going to be honest, I usually hate it when people take a look at something I'm complaining about and come back with some B.S. about how things were harder "back in my day". But, like, yeah things were worse back in my day.
I remember the Xbox 360 and PS3 generation, where most of the games made for consoles were simply not optimized for PC. I had to deal with low frame rates all the time, and just a metric ton of bugs and crashes. So, I quickly learned how to troubleshoot problems with pretty much any game I wanted to play. Googling something like "Mass Effect resolution fix" was pretty standard.
But when it comes to Elden Ring, the only problems that are really facing the game on PC is that it has very occasional frame drops, and doesn't support stuff like high refresh rates and ultrawide monitors. My boss even put out an article telling people not to buy the game on PC because it's such an unbearable mess, apparently (Editor's note: Matt Hanson is a style icon and is always correct) .
It's not really a mess though, is it? ( Editor's note: yes it is) The game runs without problems, doesn't break at high resolutions and usually sits around 60 fps, just with an occasional frame drop. This is coming from the company that put out Dark Souls, which was such a bad PC port at the time, that the community had to patch it just so folks could play it correctly.
No fancy frills
There's something that's started to bug me about PC games over the last few years, especially when it comes to AAA games like Elden Ring. The tech that gets worked into games becomes a selling point.
Technology like ray tracing , DLSS and FidelityFX Super Resolution is cool, but it shouldn't be required for a game to be worth looking at on PC. Unfortunately, we just got ourselves stuck in a situation where a lot of it is super necessary.
With all the shiny bells and whistles that are getting shoved into PC games these days, DLSS and FSR are more important than ever, especially if you want to play games at 4K. Even with the most powerful graphics card in the world, the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3090 , you can't play a game like Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K with the fancy effects without rendering it at a low resolution and upscaling it back to native res.
So while something like DLSS has some genuine benefits for people with lower-end hardware, it ends up being a crutch that developers can lean on, adding bloated visual effects to games that don't need them.
When a game comes out and focuses on just being a good game, it doesn't need fancy tech to be worth playing. I'm going to be honest, the only reason I play most of the games that come out recently is to look at the shiny lights. Dying Light 2 is a great example of a game that's absolutely awful, but it has ray tracing, so it had my attention for a while.
Elden Ring doesn't need that. Elden Ring is essentially using last-generation tech, the big move that makes it harder to run is just that it essentially extended it to an open world. As pretty as Elden Ring can be, it doesn't look that much better than Dark Souls III or Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. But it doesn't need to.
To be fair, I am really fond of the games From Software has put out in the past, but playing through Elden Ring over the last few weeks really drives home how bloated AAA PC games have become.
Even without the bells and whistles I typically expect from a major game release these days, I've already put 130 hours into Elden Ring on PC, finishing the game once already. And while the frame drops are bad sometimes, it was never what stopped me from killing a boss or enjoying walking into a new area.
As far as "bad" PC ports go, Elden Ring is pretty damn good. And because it's one of the best games I've played in my life, even the problems it does have simply don't matter to me - a minor inconvenience that accompanies what I hope becomes the benchmark for RPGs in this new generation.
Morbius is being slammed as the worst Marvel movie ever
There’s no simpler way to put this: Morbius has been annihilated by critics.
After the phenomenal success of Spider-Man: No Way Home , it was hoped that Sony’s next Marvel movie might inherit at least some of the webslinger’s magic – but, instead, reviews suggest Morbius could be among the very worst films of the year.
Before diving into those reactions, though, a brief synopsis: Morbius stars Jared Leto as a scientist-turned-vampiric anti-hero who must come to terms with his newfound lust for blood. The movie takes place in the same universe as Tom Hardy's Venom, and hits theaters worldwide on April 1 (UK audiences can catch it a day earlier on March 31).
Let’s kick off with the Rotten Tomatoes overview. According to the review aggregator site, Morbius currently wears a heavy 19% critics rating – based on the reactions of 63 accredited journalists – around its neck. For context, that number puts the movie in a worse position than 2019's X-Men flick Dark Phoenix and even 1995’s Judge Dredd on the site’s ranking of the worst-reviewed superhero movies ever . Ouch.
Digging into the reviews themselves, the language used is even more damning – but let’s start with the nice ones (relatively speaking…).
The AV Club ’s Todd Gilchrist labelled Morbius “a bland, competent, and safe superhero adventure that seems destined to be forgotten before its end credits finish rolling.” Similarly, Variety ’s Owen Gleiberman said it’s “close to being a generic Marvel movie” but is ultimately little more than a chance for “Leto to punch the clock and get on the comic-book train.”
Vanity Fair ’s Richard Lawson praised the movie’s “seriousness of intent” when it comes to its lack of cringey humor, while IGN ’s Matt Donato said “audiences are fed exactly what they’re most likely expecting from this bargain-bat origin.”
That, though, is about all the semi-positive reception we could find. Other critics, like Playlist ’s Jason Bailey, didn’t hold back: “Morbius is bad, yes, but it's not even fun-bad, like the Venom movies; it's just kind of depressing.”
The Independent ’s Clarisse Loughrey was equally scathing, calling the Spider-Man spin-off “too flavourless to even be the wild, untethered disaster some were secretly hoping for,” while The Times ' Kevin Maher decried Morbius as “an appalling superhero snooze-fest [...] without dramatic jeopardy, originality, narrative coherence, compelling characters or a single even vaguely human performance.”
Can it get worse than that? It sure can. Film Stories ’ Tom Beasley said “the gonzo chaos of Venom gave life to a franchise but [Morbius] has, appropriately enough, sucked it all out.” IndieWire ’s Kate Erbland wrote that “even the most basic elements of the film are incomprehensible.”
But it’s Rolling Stone ’s David Fear who delivered perhaps the strongest criticism of them all, describing Morbius as “the single most anemic Marvel movie ever made.”
Analysis: a bad start to a (hopefully) good year for Marvel
By the sounds of it, then, Morbius hasn't come anywhere close to replicating the heroic delights of December's Spider-Man: No Way Home – a fact likely to affect Morbius' box office performance.
Marvel fans should, however, take comfort in the knowledge that Morbius exists outside of Marvel’s Phase 4 universe. On that front, the superhero studio has three bonafide entries arriving throughout the year that are sure to fare better (with both critics and audiences) than Jared Leto’s titular vampire.
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (May 6), Thor: Love and Thunder (July 8) and Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (November 11) count among the many new movies coming to theaters in 2022 – all of which look likely to drive the MCU forward in meaningful ways.
But that's not all that Marvel has in store for its fervent fanbase. There are three MCU Disney Plus shows on the way in 2022, too – Moon Knight being the first of those, with the Oscar Isaac-starring TV series making its streaming debut on March 30. You can check out our spoiler-free review of the show, if you haven't already.
Ms Marvel will follow Moon Knight on June 8, while She-Hulk will make her live-action debut sometime in late 2022. Secret Invasion , which sees Samuel L Jackson reprise his role as Nick Fury, is rumored to be coming this year, too, but its launch is still up in the air. There may even be a second season of Marvel's animated What If...? anthology series this year, but that remains to be seen at present.
Marvel fans, then, will be dining on new MCU productions for some time yet. Critics, though, appear to have had their fill of Morbius. With the movie out now in theaters, general film fans can see for themselves whether those reviews are over-the-top or spot on.