Five things coming in 2022

As is tradition, in the wake of last week's review of things I enjoyed in 2021, we now take a look forward into the New Year with a list of upcoming projects that I am anticipating in 2022.

You've been here before. You know the deal. So let's get to it.

Star Trek: Picard (season 2)

When it comes to television projects, I generally reserve this list for series premieres, if only to avoid the temptation of putting the same shows on the list every year.

But this time I'm making an exception. Both because it's already been more than a year since the first season of "Star Trek: Picard" and because I am just really looking forward to what's coming up.

Continuing the post-life adventures of Jean-Luc Picard, whose consciousness now resides in a synthetic body after the conclusion of season 1, the second season will feature heavy questions about the nature of identity, some commentary on technology culture, time travel, and, most importantly, the return of my favorite Star Trek frenemy, John de Lancei's Q.

I'll admit that the first season of "Star Trek: Picard" didn't satisfy as much as I'd hoped, largely due to some inconsistent pacing and a perhaps overambitious number of storylines. It's possible that the second season will retain those issues but still… Q.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise has spawned a great number of media adaptations over the years, from movies to cartoons to toys. Few aspects of the franchise however are as well regarded as the 1989 arcade game and its various sequels and home console ports.

Released on the 8-bit and 16-bit consoles of the era, the TMNT games set the bar for side-scrolling beat-em-up games of the time. For multi-player experiences, you couldn't do better than beating on Foot Ninjas in 2-4 player co-op.

Which is not to say that those games have stood the test of time. The beat-em-up genre in general has not aged well. Every time I've gone back to play an old school beat-em-up I've been dismayed at the simplicity and repetitiveness of the gameplay. What was acceptable back then does not necessarily hold up today.

Fortunately, the aptly named Tribute Games Inc. is looking to revive that heyday with "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge." The upcoming multiplayer beat-em-up is a brand new game made in the style of those classic titles, but with modern graphical and gameplay features that weren't possible 30 years ago.

If early impressions are to be believed, the game could offer all the nostalgia of those classic games with a gameplay loop made to satisfy modern expectations.

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Remember back when Disney bought Lucasfilm and everybody assumed that we'd be getting a new Star Wars movie every year for the rest of eternity?

As soon as Lucasfilm announced that they would be making stand-alone movies in between installments of the sequel trilogy, there was one idea that seemed like a complete no-brainer. An Obi-Wan Kenobi movie starring Ewan McGregor.

After all, if there is anything that Star Wars fans can agree on, it's that Ewan McGregor's performance as the Jedi mentor in the prequel trilogy was among the best parts of those movies. Bringing him back to reprise his role in new projects just makes sense.

And yet, none of that happened.

Somehow, Lucasfilm has crashed and burned the theatrical viability of the Star Wars franchise so hard that they didn't even get around to bringing McGregor back to the big screen.

But, the theater's loss is the streaming service's gain and, at some point this year, we will finally see McGregor don his Jedi robes again for a six episode limited series set in the years between Episode III and IV.

Which is not to say that the move to Disney+ has kept the series free from production problems. Apparently production was delayed in 2020 to give the show a complete rewrite of the script, which isn't the most encouraging of signs. Still, Lucasfilm has shown much more consistency with their direct-to-streaming projects than their movies in recent years so it's hard to believe that this show will be anything less than okay.

And even if it's just fine, that's still six hours more of Ewan McGregor's Obi-Wan than we had before.

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

As much as I enjoyed "Spider-Man: Far From Home," it still doesn't hold a candle to 2018's Academy Award winning "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse."

Centering on Miles Morales teaming up with other alternate universe versions of the web-head, the animated movie had an amazing story, spectacular art direction, and a sensational soundtrack all coming together to make the ultimate Spider-Man movie experience.

And now, at long last, we're getting more of it.

Scheduled for an October 7, 2022 release, "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (Part One)" will be the first of a two-part sequel that continues the multiverse hopping adventures, with the second part presumably slated for 2023.

It's rare to see a movie franchise openly split a story into two parts, but I consider it a good sign. It demonstrates that Sony has the utmost confidence in the project and that they are allowing producers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller the creative leeway to tell the story they want to tell without having to compromise for time. (If only Sony gave Marc Webb's live action Spider-Man movies the same consideration.)

Breath of the Wild 2

Making my list for I believe the third consecutive year is the still untitled sequel to "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild."

Back in January of 2020 I admitted that a release that year was optimistic, but unlikely. In 2021, I was more confident that the game would come out by year's end, but that clearly didn't happen. Now, as we enter 2022, I can only assume we have to be getting closer to the release date.

Not that there's any evidence to that effect. In the last two years Nintendo has released virtually no information about the game or its state of development. In fact, we still do not even know what the game will be called.

It seems unfathomable, but it's looking increasingly likely that development of this game will take as long as it took to make the original, in spite of the fact that a sequel should, in theory, save a lot of time by being able to use the already existing physics engine and artistic assets of its predecessor.

Maybe they've had to start from scratch at some point in the project. Maybe COVID has had a stronger impact on development than anybody knows. Or maybe that the scale of the game is so large that it's just simply taken this long.

Whatever the case, this game can't be in development forever and you can bet I'll be there on release date to finally get my hands on it.

Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and just wants to know what the game is called already.