The big news involving LEGO this week is that it will finally appear in Fortnite as the building toy receives its own mode in arguably the most popular game in the world.
While that is great for Fortnite players, the more impressive crossover may be happening within LEGO’s toys instead.
Before we explain why we need to go over some LEGO nomenclature. Within LEGO sets are divided into Themes. These Themes can be external licences like Star Wars, Minecraft, Super Mario and more. Themes can also be from LEGO’s own inhouse licences such as the ever-popular Ninjago, the more girl-focused Friends, the Funko Pop competitor BrickHeadz and so on.
If you’re very unfamiliar with LEGO right now but collected it when you were younger, LEGO’s own Themes also contain Bionicle, the famous Theme that saved LEGO from bankruptcy in the early 2000s. For an even older crowd Castle and Pirates are two more Themes from LEGO itself. While the company does a lot of third party themes to make use of popular IPs, it is still making a lot of toys under its own banner.
At the time of writing, according to the local online LEGO store, there are 37 Themes active at the moments.
Themes act as a way to classify and sort the hundreds of sets LEGO puts out every year and it has other benefits such as making shopping easier for those looking to buy gifts.
This delineation also means that Themes rarely, if ever, interact with each other. Sometimes there will be sly references to other themes as little Easter Eggs with the aforementioned Bionicle (now long retired) still appearing in new sets as small prints or stickers. Outside of these small references we do occasionally see external licences used in more than one Theme.
Take Ferrari for example. Right now you can buy a Ferrari Daytona in the LEGO Technic Theme, and a Ferrari 812 Competizione in the LEGO Speed Champions Theme.
As you can see in the images below these two are completely different in building system, scale, target market and more. This is very common for differing Themes acting as differentiators of what customers can expect.
In 2024 however, LEGO will attempt something new. The company is rolling out a Space subtheme that will stretch across several Themes at once.
This has never been done before and shoppers will be able to identify Space sets by the grey cutout on the right hand side of boxes as well as the blue Space logo.
Aside from spanning across many of LEGO’s Themes, Space is also notable for the fact that it will be compatible across sets using a module system.
Now, obviously, all LEGO is compatible with all other LEGO, that’s kind of the entire point of this toy. What makes Space different is that the modules all use a specific type of connector so that you don’t need to take anything apart to combine sets and swap modules.
Check out the two sets below. One is from LEGO’s own City theme which usually deals with more mundane things like police and firefighters. The other set is from the aforementioned Friends which you can commonly find focusing on shops and living spaces.
City and Friends are also very different because of the way they present characters. City uses the tried and tested LEGO minifigure. Friends, on the hand, uses Mini Dolls which are completely different.
Despite these differences, Space will unite City, Friends and many other Themes. We’ll have to get our hands on these toys next year to see just how this works in execution, but right now it is very appealing.
The module system you can see is advertised on the back of the boxes of these toys. The QR code right next to this advert, however, does not work at the time of writing. The QR code will lead you to a generic page on LEGO’s website (kids.lego.com). The URL that is written onto the box, “lego.com/Airlock” will lead to a 404 page.
LEGO hasn’t said anything specific about Space just yet but you can explore more of it with the links below. We’ve provided links to all Space sets revealed so far, divided into their Themes.
Our links go to the independent database site Brickset which is a great resource for all LEGO fans. This is usually more reliable than LEGO’s own sites which will stop listing products once they are no longer available, and do not provide regional pricing.
Brickset also provides release dates for these sets but it should be noted that the full reveals for Space haven’t happened yet. The first big wave of Space will arrive on 1st January 2024 and we will likely see more of them throughout the year.
Technic
- 42181: VTOL Heavy Cargo Spaceship LT81
- 42180: Mars Crew Exploration Rover
- 42179: Planet Earth and Moon in Orbit
- 42178: Surface Space Loader LT78
City
- 60434: Space Base and Rocket Launchpad
- 60433: Modular Space Station
- 60432: Command Rover and Crane Loader
- 60431: Space Explorer Rover and Alien Life
- 60430: Interstellar Spaceship
- 60429: Spaceship and Asteroid Discovery
- 60428: Space Construction Mech
- 30663: Space Hoverbike
