LEGO Ideas Design Manager Sam Johnson has confirmed that the LEGO Creator 3-in-1 Series is where LEGO will revisit its Classic themes going forward.
Speaking during a recent roundtable interview with select LEGO Fan Media Outlets, Johnson revealed that The LEGO Group (TLG) is well aware of the nostalgia surrounding Classic LEGO themes like LEGO Castle and LEGO Pirates, but that the company is currently looking for alternative solutions to resurrecting entire product lines. This is most likely to leave room for licensed themes such as LEGO Lord of the Rings, LEGO Harry Potter, and LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean—who have long been accepted as placeholders for Classic LEGO Castle and LEGO Pirates.
“Pirates and Castle are pretty much the cornerstones of LEGO play,” he explained. “We’ve grown up with them, so we have this nostalgia—but since the late ‘80s or early ‘90s, LEGO has evolved a lot. And maybe there’s new homes for those themes, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to have their own product line.”
Sam also discussed that the LEGO Pirates Theme specifically is often dominated (in terms of sales) by whatever ship is currently on the market, usually at the expense of the rest of the theme's product line; which would explain why TLG chose to create a 3-in-1 for LEGO Creator Pirate Ship (31109), which contained alternative builds that you would normally expect to be included in a wave of Pirates sets—like a Treasure Island and Pirate's Inn.
“We don’t want to undersell any other ideas when we could include all three of those in one box, so Creator 3-in-1 has become a home for a lot of the generic LEGO themes,” Johnson specified.
Another Classic LEGO Theme that we expect to see represented in the LEGO Creator 3-in-1 series is LEGO Castle, which—at least according to Sam—isn’t going anywhere soon; even though we haven’t had a true and full LEGO Castle line since 2015.
“Castle is one of those foundation themes of LEGO,” Sam explained. “It’s one of those themes that made LEGO what it is today, through people like us. And it’s timeless, so even though we haven’t done an entire theme, it doesn’t mean that we won’t do a Castle product now and again. There was a flying castle in The LEGO Movie.”
Many classic LEGO Castle fans will recall the Nexo Knights Theme which ran supreme from 2016-2018 and sold extremely well, and was essentially the cause for no more classic Castle sets during this time.
“When we have something like that maybe we tone down on the classic [tropes], and now [that] NEXO KNIGHTS is put away for a while we can concentrate more on classic LEGO, so these things may come up again,” he said. “And the characters come up constantly in the Collectible Minifigures. Castle is definitely not gone, and I’m hoping that in the near future you will be extremely happy. I don’t know if there’s anything coming, but I’m hoping!”
Shortly after the unprecedented launch of Pirates of Barracuda Bay 21322 in 2020, LEGO launched the LEGO Creator 3-in-1 Pirate Ship (31109) to accompany the newfound interest in Classic Pirates.
“Something we always hope when we do these one-off things in LEGO Ideas is that it will revive something and bring some kind of new opportunity for the LEGO Group. So what we were really hoping with 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay is that the real LEGO Pirates will come back and be where they should be in their prominent place."
When broached on the topic of whether or not we'll see a revival of classic Castle anytime soon, Johnson enthusiastically replied: “Now we have these cool Black Falcon knights [in 21325 Medieval Blacksmith], and that’s just a peek into an endless world of castle, so who knows what could happen?”
Those of you who have been following our news reporting will recall that we previously reported the first information on the upcoming LEGO Creator 3-in-1 Knight's Castle 31120 which will do just what Sam Johnson alluded—return us to classic LEGO Castle!
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