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Does anyone still recall last May, when came the seemingly joking news that LEGO was collaborating with PC game heavyweight Activision Blizzard to create some tie-ins for their most popular (and non-real-time strategy) game title Overwatch? If it needs repeating, yes it’s real, and this new bit of news confirms that LEGO Overwatch sets are really happening. Just as in April, when the newly-minted Wizarding World over-franchise comprising Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts was given a dedicated page all its own over at LEGO.com to display its tie-in LEGO products, so too now does Activision Blizzard’s Overwatch also receive that rare honor.
And just like with the first appearance of the LEGO Wizarding World mini-page, right now the LEGO Overwatch page is pretty bare-bones; just the Overwatch game logo and a teaser slogan reading: “Let’s get this moving!” We’re pretty sure it’ll be filled with information on upcoming LEGO tie-in sets soon enough.
As for what we might expect, the LEGO Overwatch page details might give hints. The faded background image is believed to be the Numbani stage, and the teaser line is what the game’s face character Tracer says whenever she pushes the payload cart in an Escort map. The best bet is that they’re battleground play-sets based on the mini movies such as this.
We also have an estimate on when these LEGO Overwatch sets will come out. The copyright at the bottom says 2019, so it looks like we might be waiting until early next year at the minimum. LEGO hasn’t quite failed with its franchise tie-ins yet; and I sincerely believe they won’t start with Overwatch. For now, lets appreciate how LEGO fans came up with their own version of custom LEGO Overwatch minifigs such as this one from Kaiju Dan.
One of the significant advances made by LEGO in terms of technology for their products was the introduction of mechanical parts that can be driven by electrical power to operate particular sets. What these electronic systems were called depended on the line they’re part of, but for the most part they fell under Power Functions. Most recently LEGO has been promoting a new series of Power Functions 2.0 components for some of their latest sets like several trains on LEGO City and the App-Controlled Batmobile (76112). But all of a sudden The LEGO Group has announced a new product rebranding which it refers to as LEGO Powered UP
The App-Controlled Batmobile (76112) utilizes LEGO’s Power Functions 2.0
In this feature renaming, LEGO Power Functions 2.0 will be grouped together with other electronic component systems like LEGO Boost and WeDo 2.0 of the LEGO Education line under a unified banner. These features will now be collectively branded as LEGO Powered UP across all products using them.
The LEGO Boost Creative Toolbox (17101)
To coincide with this rebranding all unique features from the previous electric parts systems will become common, such as replacing infrared sensors with wireless BLE connections and compatibility with downloadable LEGO mobile apps. The degree of connectivity and functionality being offered by LEGO Powered UP is greater than anything before.
It all comes across as overwhelming, but LEGO is giving their more tech-oriented fans time to digest this rebranding. All sets with the mentioned features releasing this year will still bear Power Functions 2.0 and such on their respective packaging. Expect LEGO Powered UP to replace those labels by 2019 though.
For more details, check out this transcript of a recent LEGO Q&A. We’ve included an excerpt here describing one of the new advantages of Powered UP.
…All elements can now be electrically identified, so when attaching e.g. a train motor, the Hub and the App can now recognise it is a train motor. This allows us to help younger users put things in the right place. Another benefit is that we can optimise functionality based on particular elements, for example when using a train motor or the add-on light, the handset increments/decrements power (good for train / setting light) but when using the medium motor, the handset sets 100% power when a button is pressed down (good for RC vehicles)…
So what do you think about these recent developments about the LEGO Powered Up line? Do you think this is a welcomed move as far the LEGO community is concerned? Let us know in the comments below.
It has almost been a week since the latest wave of LEGO summer sets have been released, with a handful of them now being temporarily out of stock or in backorder from shop.LEGO.com due to their high demand and popularity among fans. This latest wave of new LEGO sets is pretty much impressive and sought after on their own, with a good number of sets coming from the LEGO Harry Potter Wizarding World, LEGO Ninjago and LEGO Ideas just to name a few. And if you haven’t made up your mind until now on which of these uber cool sets you want to bring home with you, then you’ll be glad to know that most of them are still available either via shop.LEGO.com or Amazon. Let’s look back and revisit some of them these latest LEGO summer sets and see if we still have the chance to bag them. For convenience, just click on the links to know more. Whenever applicable, and if the set is on backorder at LEGO Shop@Home, I’ve also included an its corresponding link on Amazon for you to check as well. Since these are affiliate links, any purchase that you made through these will be a big help in keeping our blogsite up.
Just a last reminder: for any purchases worth $35 and above from August 1 to 14 entitles you to a free Plants from Plants (40320) set, and a free LEGO Unikitty Castle Room (5005239) from August 1 to 12 for any LEGO Unikitty set purchase worth $25 and above.
We already know there’s a lot of LEGO sets that came out on the first of August. Among them are the latest train sets under the hugely popular LEGO City line. One of these recent locomotive models, the Passenger Train (60197), is suddenly getting attention from LEGO train enthusiasts due to its specific locomotive components making it possible to affordably extend its length up to double.
Some of the other LEGO passenger train sets, especially of the modern City designs, usually comprise two engines and a train carriage. The engines go on either side of the train (as with actual contemporary locomotives, to easily go back and forth on its set rail line and minimize the need for a train turntable).
The thing is, LEGO rail fans who would like to extend their model trains find that buying extra copies of train sets with two engines leave them with too many engines and too few carriages. The City Passenger Train version 60197 eliminates that wastage by providing only one buildable engine to two carriages in set.
Now while that normally means the 60197 loco will more feasibly work only on a circular track going one way (without a model turntable), getting a second 60197 would have the two sets being joined back to back, with the engines on opposite sides. That results in a long, realistic train design with at least four passenger carriages in between.
With the LEGO City Power Functions included in the Passenger Train (60197), builders can now make it go forward and back on its track, as there are engine motors on either side to make it go the desired direction. In fact, if the Power Function motors on both engines are activated simultaneously (forward for the leading engine and reverse for the rear one), they could combine their individual speeds to make the whole loco faster.
The LEGO Store September 2018 Calendar is now available online, and it comes with a handful of LEGO Harry Potter and Friends promotionals, plus a plethora of new LEGO sets to watch out for. I am particularly interested on what exclusive VIP sets will be offered from September 13-30, which, as rumor has it, will be the LEGO Star Wars Cloud City UCS (75222). Fans of the LEGO Star Wars theme have always felt that this is one long overdue set so it is kind of exciting to see what LEGO has in the works on this one. The other exclusive LEGO VIP set is a complete mystery, and as always LEGO will be most likely keeping us guessing until the end of this month.
For the time being, let’s break down the details of the LEGO Store September 2018 Calendar and see what we can find.
Stop by the LEGO Store to build a magical car with special powers and race through the Forbidden Forest. Beware of spiders and get to Hogwarts as fast as you can.
September 11 – 12: The Monthly Mini Model Build for the September is a Glider (40284).
To avail this freebie, LEGO VIP members need to register at shop.LEGO.com/Minibuild-registration beginning August 15.
September 13 – 30: LEGO VIPs get Early Access to two NEW exclusive LEGO sets.
September 19: Build a Magical Wand!
Come to the LEGO Store and build your very own magical wizarding wand! You can then take home your wand model, for free! Registration is on a first come, first served basis and quantities are limited. Sign up in store or by phone starting September 1st.
After their official debut in Toys R Us stores in Canada, German LEGO fan site Stone Wars has just released official images of the latest LEGO BrickHeadz sets that Disney fans in the US are raring for. The LEGO BrickHeadz Mickey (41624) and Minnie (41625) represents two of the most revered Disney icons, with each BrickHeadz set coming in at 109 and 129 pieces respectively.
The LEGO BrickHeadz Mickey (41624) and Minnie (41625) also commemorates Disney’s humble beginnings 90 years ago to become the colossal House of Mouse that we know today. Though LEGO has not released any official word about the sets’ exact release date save for a brief teaser announcing their arrival, the word around LEGO fan circles is that they will on their way to store shelves on August 1 together with other BrickHeadz sets slated on this date.
For the mean time, let’s take a closer look at Disney’s most famous and endearing couple in LEGO BrickHeadz style.
LEGO BrickHeadz Disney Mickey (41624)
LEGO BrickHeadz Disney Minnie (41625)
These latest LEGO BrickHeadz sets follows other sought after collectibles such as Elsa (41617), Anna & Olaf (41618), Hermione (41616), and Harry & Hedwig (41615). For an updated listing of all known LEGO BrickHeadz that were now released so far, including those that we will watch out for, be sure to check out this neat graphic right here.
Fans of Star Wars, especially those of a certain inclination, might say that the hype for Solo didn’t die to thunderous applause the way the Old Republic did to become Palpatine’s Empire. For more casual followers, it really doesn’t matter. For LEGO fans, they might argue that the tie-in sets at least were quite cool. Aside from the big box sets, there were also LEGO Star Wars polybags for Solo that got revealed earlier on. Some, like the Han Solo Mud-Trooper (40300), were originally presented as exclusive Toys ‘R’ Us freebies. We all know what happened; but that also left the status of these polybags in limbo for some time.
We can stop wondering now. Promobricks from Germany has just broken the news that since the last weekend of July, LEGO Stores in that country, particularly the one at their LEGOLAND Deutschland in Günzburg, have the Han Solo Mud-Trooper (40300) as a gift-with-purchase polybag.
Yes, word is that certain Solo-related LEGO Star Wars sets were going to be released in August 1. But some LEGO markets love jumping the gun, and Germany did by a few days. Plus, any LEGO Star Wars total purchase of at least €65 at LEGOLAND Deutschland’s store gets a free Han Solo Mud-Trooper (40300) minifigure polybag.
Well, it’s now the first day of August as of this writing, so we can expect other LEGO Stores to start offering the scheduled release sets for this day. And now we know that will also include the LEGO Star Wars Mud-Trooper Han Solo (40300).
Towards the end of last week we caught some small bit of news concerning the recently released and heavily wish-listed LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle (71043) micro-scale set. Apparently some LEGO Stores in the US have been processing pre-orders for the set, and LEGO Harry Potter fans were left to wonder, were all US LEGO Stores involved? Did other countries also have the same in-store pre-ordering in their local LEGO brand stores? The answer, as it turns out, is quite positive, even up to north in Canada. LEGO apparently cottoned on to the possibility that in-store LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle (71043) pre-orders will be a good measure to determine demand versus supply for this highly sought after set.
It’s most likely that LEGO is trying to get a good grip on how to ensure that supplies are enough in relation to the sheer number of LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle (71043) pre-orders, and to preempt complaints like when the LEGO Star Wars UCS Millennium Falcon (75192) kept running out in stores and retailers for months.
The LEGO Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle (71043) is already available to VIP members before its general release on the first day of September, which is when all those who have made pre-orders in the US and Canada will receive theirs. One only needs to put down $40 of the $399.99 price and they’ll have a lock on one set of the micro-scale castle in September.
The wait has been long, but maybe it was worth it. Due to an unfortunate real-life incident beyond anyone’s control, LEGO’s Architecture set of the Las Vegas skyline, numbered 21038, was delayed while one of its featured structures, the hotel where the incident occurred, was replaced with a new building. Another delay announced this year pushed the LEGO Architecture Las Vegas set to the latter portion of 2018. In the interim, images of the revamped set, now numbered 21047, popped up in out-of-the-way online sources such as a Korean-language LEGO product catalog. Finally however, we now have the official images of the LEGO Architecture Las Vegas (21047) set.
Amazon France now has a product listing for the new LEGO Architecture Las Vegas (21047). The images there have come a long way towards reassuring LEGO fans that have been waiting for this product that it’s real, confirmed, and will be delayed no longer.
The back of the box reiterates all the Vegas landmarks that are included in this Architecture set. There’s the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, Fremont Street Experience, Stratosphere tower, Encore at the Wynn, the Luxor, and the Bellagio Hotel which replaced the Mandalay Bay from the original 21038 version.
Now, this Amazon France listing for the LEGO Architecture Las Vegas (21047) has no info on pricing and release date, though the official LEGO product catalog that first showed images of the revamp says we’ll be getting it in September. We most certainly hope so.
Remember back in the early days of Star Wars: The Last Jedi in UK cinemas, when brick-built statues of those adorable Porg creatures popped up in the streets of London? Horrendous as they may seem for some, most LEGO Star Wars fans however, simply loved the idea of having a LEGO Porg set that they can bring home with them. We are also aware that the LEGO Star Wars Porg (75230) is really going to happen when back in June, a Dutch online retailer listed the set in their database. And this time around, we finally have a glimpse of their official images.
The LEGO Star Wars Porg (75230) involves perhaps one of the most breakout popular alien creatures ever conceived in the latest Star Wars franchise. It’s amazing how many times before we managed to get tangible documentary proof of announced but unrevealed LEGO sets from some far-off sources. This time, the one that showed photos of the original box for LEGO Star Wars Porg (75230) for everybody’s consideration, was discovered by Promobricks at an online toy retailer in the Ukraine.
There’s also an image of the completed Porg (75230) model, which also gets a standing plaque similar to the LEGO Star Wars Ultimate Collectors’ Series sets. The most fascinating features of the model are its articulated flippers, a mouth mechanism to open and shut that meme-worthy mouth, and flipping wings. The back of this avian model is impressively detailed as well.
And that’s about it. The Ukrainian retailer hasn’t put their price for the LEGO Star Wars Porg (75230), where elsewhere it’s listed as €80/$95, before images were even shown. But now we know what the Porg model looks like, so it’s up to LEGO Star Wars fans if they’re up to getting this set. It does look purposely hilarious.
