FISCHER: Five things to look forward to in 2025

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

Ready or not, here it comes.

2025 approaches and with it a new lineup of things to look forward to.

Though by no means a comprehensive list, here are five things that have caught my attention coming up over the next 12 months.

“Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man”

Originally pitched as part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, covering the early days of Tom Holland’s Spider-Man, the creative team quickly found that maintaining that strict continuity was too restrictive and since then the show has been reworked into its own stand-alone series.

Granted, yet another interpretation of Spider-Man’s high school years is not exactly on the top of my wish list. Still, the animation looks sharp and stylish, so it should at least be a fun watch.

Initially announced four years ago, one could be forgiven for forgetting that the latest animated incarnation of Spider-Man was still coming out. Hopefully good things come to those who wait. Last year’s “X-Men ‘97” was in a similar situation so I’m hoping that history will repeat itself.

“Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX”

No, my keyboard didn’t get stuck. That’s actually the title.

The Gundam franchise is near and dear to my heart, though I admit I’ve been neglecting the latest entries for the last few years and have only recently started catching back up.

Debuting in just a few weeks, GQuuuuuX is the 16th television series in the franchise and will offer a fresh new take on the giant robot series. Co-produced by the creative minds behind the Neon Genesis Evangelion franchise, the new show looks like it’s going to be as unconventional as its title. Still, all the familiar elements of giant robots fighting each other around space colonies seems to be in play so I’m excited to see how this shapes up.

“Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii”

I’ve never played a Like a Dragon game, better known in the west as the Yakuza franchise. The open world beat-em-up series has just never really caught my attention.

At least until now.

Guiding an amnesiac Japanese gangster through an over-the-top pirate adventure sounds like a lot of fun and may just be the push that gets me to dive into the series.

“Andor” Season 2

I try to keep this list limited to relatively new things, but seeing as it’s been more than two years since the first season of “Andor,” I figure I can let this one slide in.

A spy-thriller prequel to “Rogue One,” the second, and final, season of the show will continue to follow the titular character through the story of the earliest days of the Rebel Alliance and the dirty side of fighting a war away from the heroic laser sword warriors and dramatic starfighter dogfights.

Say what you will about the otherwise uneven offerings that Lucasfilm has had on Disney+, “Andor” stands in a league of its own and I can’t wait to see it concluded.

“Stormgate”

Once upon a time, Blizzard’s Starcraft ranked among my favorite video game franchises. Between 2010 and 2016 I put countless hours into “Starcraft II” and its various expansions. I didn’t just enjoy the single-player campaign, but also got pretty decent in the ranked competitive scene.

Sadly, Activision Blizzard has shown little interest in putting resources toward the real-time strategy genre and there’s been little activity for the franchise in a long time and frankly, considering the company’s track record of late, that may be for the best.

Enter Frost Giant Studios, a new studio founded by former Blizzard developers intent on making a new real-time strategy game, “Stormgate,” which is essentially “Starcraft” with just enough differences to avoid a copyright infringement lawsuit.

These kind of spiritual successors aren’t uncommon. Some have been more successful than others so fingers crossed that “Stormgate” ends up on the good end of the spectrum.

Honorable Mentions

Honorable mentions go to “Daredevil: Born Again,” which will see Charlie Cox return to his iconic role in what will hopefully be a worthy adaptation to the most highly regarded Daredevil story ever written; “Alien: Earth,” which has an awful sounding premise but I always hold out a little hope that an Aliens project will surprise me; and “Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2,” a long-awaited sequel to a 20-year-old video game that has a behind-the-scenes development story almost as convoluted as the game’s secret vampire politics.

And that’s what I’m looking forward to this year. I’m sure the year will surprise me with unexpected delights, so we’ll have to see which, if any, of these five make the cut for my eventual round-up list in 52 weeks.

— Travis Fischer is a news writer for the Charles City Press and is also granting a Dishonorable Mention to “Spider-Man: Beyond the Spider-Verse,” which was supposed to come out in 2024 and is now so far behind that it’s not even on the 2025 schedule.