Goodbye, money: Lego’s latest gaming set will surely open a wallet-emptying can of worms

Oh god. Oh no. Oh, Christ.

That was my reaction when I saw Lego’s latest video game themed set: kit #71438, “Super Mario World: Mario & Yoshi”. Nintendo and Lego have been hand-in-hand for years now. A collaboration that began with kid-friendly, app-enhanced Mario sets but has quickly expanded. We have grown-up nostalgia bait like the NES and ? Block, Animal Crossing sets, and after rejecting multiple fan pitches featuring the series, Lego Zelda arrives in a little over a month.

My point is, the concept of a set like this isn’t exactly new. This gorgeous brick-built representation of Mario riding atop his trusty dinosaur pal fits right into that ‘nostalgia bait’ category above, a set aimed squarely at people hurtling towards middle age with a longing for their childhood and enough disposable income that £115 for some plastic bricks seems ‘fair enough’. It’s aimed at me, basically. So none of this is exactly new. And yet…

This set - this is something different. Something dangerous. And I’m excited - and fearful - at what it might usher in next.

All of this feeling is triggered by the mere nature of the set - a Lego recreation of an in-game sprite, where bricks come to represent 16-bit pixels with startling accuracy. There’s been shades of this in a few other sets - most notably the NES, where over the course of an hour or so the builder would apply 1x1 tiles to a flexible sheet to create a recreation of Super Mario Bros. Level 1-1 that can sit inside the included Lego TV, to give a simulation of the game being played. This is something different, though - it’s just a great big sprite that you can put on your mantelpiece.

Lego has obviously given it a fluff up with some classically ‘Lego’ features. A crank on the side of the set makes Yoshi’s mouth open and his tongue extend, just like in the game, when turned. You’ll probably be able to connect that to some Lego ‘powered up’ elements with a bit of jiggery-pokery, meaning you can make it into a moving feature without human interaction if you so desire.

There’s also a scannable tag on the set which is readable by the digital Lego Mario figures - so popping Mario, Luigi, or Peach onto the set will trigger some sort of sound and music presentation, as with the NES. It’s all very cool, and I’d argue looks like fair enough value for money. I told you I was that person.

But most interesting, and scary, is what this is, like I say, not its bonus features. Lego loves a theme it can just hammer in various shapes and forms. The company, like Nintendo, is often wildly experimental and has a lot of themes or ideas that are false starts - but when something works, they go for it. That’s why there’s so many adult-oriented Lego offerings that are highly realistic recreations of flowers in the form of the Botanical Collection. That’s why everyone from Donald Duck to Knuckles has been recreated as a ‘Brickheadz’ figure. And looking at this, I see Lego’s next great theme: Sprite Builds.

Lego already has a range of existing video game relationships; we’ve had sets in partnership with Atari, Namco, Sega, PlayStation, and Nintendo. Of those, four in particular are companies with some truly iconic sprite art. And I can just imagine - a Sonic 2 or 3 Sonic with the swirling running animation recreated with some sort of moving feature, like Yoshi’s tongue? A chomping, gobbling Pac-Man? Streets of Rage’s Axel delivering a blazing uppercut? Or better still, a partnership with Capcom for a Lego-animated Shoryuken?

All of this is easy to imagine in the form of Lego bricks - but it’s also easy to imagine how each could be enhanced beyond a simple build, which is what the company’s designers love to do most.

The second I saw this set, I knew all of these possibilities were inching closer to reality. I also knew what that might mean for my bank balance. A heaving can of fattened worms has been opened. But I am here for it.

Lego Super Mario World: Mario & Yoshi is out October 1, 2024 - but can be pre-ordered now.