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: building kit #71438, “Super Mario World: Mario & Yoshi.” Nintendo and Lego have been going hand in hand for years. A collaboration that started with kid-friendly, app-enhanced Mario sets, but has quickly expanded. We have adult nostalgia bait like the NES and ? Block, Animal Crossing sets, and after rejecting multiple pitches from fans about the series, Lego Zelda will arrive in just over a month.

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

This set – this is something different. Something dangerous. And I’m excited – and scared – about what the next one might herald.

All this feeling comes from the nature of the set: a Lego recreation of an in-game sprite, where bricks come to represent 16-bit pixels with astonishing accuracy. There are shades of this in a few other sets – most notably the NES, where the builder applied 1×1 tiles to a flexible sheet over the course of an hour or so to create a recreation of Super Mario Bros. Level 1-1 which is included in the included Lego TV, to provide a simulation of the game being played. This is different though: it’s just a really big sprite that you can put on your mantelpiece.

Lego has clearly freshened it up a bit with some classic ‘Lego’ features. A crank on the side of the set causes Yoshi’s mouth to open and his tongue to stick out, just like in the game, when turned. You’ll probably be able to connect that with a bit of jiggery-pokery with some ‘powered up’ elements of Lego, meaning you can make it a moving part without human intervention if you want.

There’s also a scannable tag on the set that can be read by the digital Lego Mario figures – so putting Mario, Luigi or Peach on the set will activate some sort of sound and music presentation, like on the NES. It’s all very cool, and I’d say it seems good value for money. I told you I was that person.

But the most interesting and terrifying thing is what this is is, as I said, not the bonus features. Lego likes a theme that it can hammer into different shapes and forms. The company, like Nintendo, is often wildly experimental and has many themes or ideas that are false starts, but when something works, go for it. That’s why there are so many adult-oriented Lego offerings that are highly realistic reproductions of flowers in the shape of the Botanical collection. That’s why everyone from Donald Duck to Knuckles has been remade as one ‘Brickheadz’ figure. And when I look at this, I see Lego’s next great theme: Sprite Builds.

Lego already has a series of existing video game relationships; we’ve had sets in collaboration with Atari, Namco, Sega, PlayStation and Nintendo. Of those, four in particular are companies with truly iconic sprite art. And I can just imagine it: a Sonic 2 or 3 Sonic with the swirling running animation emulated with some kind of moving feature, like Yoshi’s tongue? A chewing, gobbling Pac-Man? Streets of Rage’s Axel delivers a flaming uppercut? Or better yet: a collaboration with Capcom for a Lego-animated Shoryuken?

It’s easy to imagine all this in the form of Lego bricks, but it’s also easy to imagine how each could be improved beyond simple construction, which is what the company’s designers prefer to do.

From the moment I saw this set, I knew that all these possibilities were getting closer to reality. I also knew what that could mean for my bank balance. A large can of fattened worms has been opened. But I’m here for it.

Lego Super Mario World: Mario & Yoshi will be released on October 1, 2024, but can be pre-ordered now.