TeriXeri

I stand by my opinion that City Tower is a great starter set, but otherwise, too much of a mix up. clearly invites expanding it with other sets from a business standpoint as City Space, Construction, Trains, Police, Fire and Action are the current major subthemes, Train and Construction especially having a lot more sets compared to the last 5-10 years or so (especially in terms of having the red tram/train set, and still 3 major full train sets (2025 arctic, 2018 cargo and 2022 passenger) even with the 2022 cargo retired. Especially if it ends up being LEGO exclusive , that'll just hurt the price more (even with GWP or Insider points etc, cannot beat some 25-40% City discounts) 60380 Downtown is a much stronger set if the goal was expanding city with just buildings etc, but also got some major discounts. As for the other sets, I especially think the Police Boat is the best value set of City Summer 2025, and the new higher boat hull is a great new design, a lot of building room in that 8-wide studded area, and the boat itself has good pieces , and even if the criminal is a repeat from the prison island, you can just swap a head to avoid duplicate, as they add hairpieces for the 2 Police figures as well. Hope that boat hull will be used a lot more, as it's depth through nearly the full length makes it interesting to design like 2-deck yacht with swimming pool, or extra net/cargo space for a fishing boat or something 60373 Fire Rescue Boat is still around as well for now until end of 2026 , another great value boat hull set, but that boat design uses a lot of studs for the deck , so ultimately has a lot less space to build custom designs with interior for.

I wonder if that mining helm/pickaxe sticker in the train tunnel/cave hints at some mining sets for 2026, I mean, last time was 2018, same year as the previous landbased arctic wave. And the excavator, bulldozer and now dump truck with boulders would fit with it quite well.

It's not really new, beside CMF and such , City did it a for long time already with it's animals, going back to at least like 2018 with the arctic mammoth, and has continued since with the big shark and orca , safari animals, gorillas, and now wolves and foxes being in the biggest sets . Ninjago does it constantly , especially with something like anniversary figs or special variants. Creator was more generic but the viking ship set had very different figs already, having unique parts and prints at it's release.

True , dwarf are often the older users of the more traditional gunpowder, and steam, as seen in both Warhammer and Warcraft, with some other races like Gnomes/Goblins(warcraft) and Skaven (warhammer) being more of the sort of experimental/flimsy/possibly self-exploding contraptions and weapons . Even Lord of the Rings franchise, (especially The Two Towers movie) shows some gunpowder, in the form of Gandalf's Fireworks, , and the Bomb(Blasting Fire) at Helm's Deep, but not at a scale like Warhammer or Warcraft would , which have entire armies, or fleets full of it. some magical, some physical.

Wanted poster in 60455 Police Motorcycle references 604-14, but that's 60414 Fire Station with Fire Truck , so I wonder if one of the fire people turned criminal .

Yes it would, but it depends what "lore" or "universe" you want to create. If historical, monsters and magic have no place in that, but even LEGO introduced ghosts before they added dragons, including one in a Lion Knights' set. For example, The Empire from Warhammer fantasy uses all sorts of Castle type of elements, including knights, swordmen, spearmen, archers, crossbows and fantasy gryphons, which are great, but also includes gunpowder, mortars and cannons and such which goes a bit too far for LEGO Castle (unless you want to recreate a Warhammer scene or something) Ultimately it's personal preference. And I think LEGO did have AFOLs in mind when making sets like the new 3-in-1 Castle and Haunted House, as I think a lot of Castle fans will be drawn toward the reintroduction of the glow in the dark ghost.

It also costs €250, so it's more about budget, and not effort.

I think I remember open tubes as early as the 90s , 4559 Cargo Railway from 1996, as I took apart and rebuilt that set multiple times at the time, I remember 1x6 plates having open tubes (22 in black , 11 in yellow in that set) But LEGO still uses mixed mould types even now, for example inverted 2x2 slopes sometimes have different bottoms.

Not just sorta english, but in the 1984 catalog, when they were introduced, the UK catalog name for 6021 Jousting Knights was Sir Richard vs the Black Knight . It's pretty much localized names however, Black Knights (UK) = Black Falcons (US) before they added the more common Black Knight faction (with the black-walled castles), and Robin Hood (UK) vs Forestmen (US) vs Vrijbuiters (Dutch), and variations like Lion Knights vs Lion-heart Knights.

Themes being branded vs themes being part of other themes, is where things fall apart. 3-in-1 has been selling a Castle and a Pirate Ship for years now, same goes for Icons / Ideas Castle / Viking / Space sets, and previous Pirates Barracuda Bay. City having space sets that are completely unrelated to City whatsoever. Subthemes, like City F1 being licensed or not. I don't define themes based on their theme names anymore, as there's just so much cross referencing and usage going on. There has not been a "theme" named Space, Castle, Pirates, Vikings or whatever for like 10+ years now, not that I suddenly will call the entirety of Star Wars "Space" , or Harry Potter "Castle" . Stage sets weren't bad and they could've done so much more with it , like the dragon figures, zombie/monster figures, mexican/western figures, alien figures, etc could've had their own stage themes. But only a few made, but eventually they went away quick with huge discount as the theme ended rapidly after. https://brickset.com/sets/subtheme-Stages

Definately looking forward to the parts list of this castle + the haunted house, which looks to have useful parts as well, beyond the obvious ghost figure coming back. Also a single picture, even box picture often doesn't show a set properly. I often find sets larger then expected compared to pictures on a box/screen, even those demo pictures where it's on a table.

So at least 2 knights looks to use a white torso with a white horse logo on a grey background, again, in my view a cool nod to Nexo Lance, which did not have an official classic castle reference before unlike the rest, which had dragon/falcon/bull/fox(wolfpack)/dragon and black knight before. A bit like this but more classic. I hope the snake knight gets some sort of followup as well, the black cape and helmet really sets it up for the a new sort of Black Knight faction instead of reusing the dragon, and thus being too similar for some Icons set that might be featuring the originals (they got mentioned in the Lion Knights Castle manual after all) , also not to mention they brought back the Glowing Ghost mould in another 3-in-1 set, and 6086 Black Knight's Castle had a ghost too. For this snake faction they could also do a black castle of some sort, the yellows would make it different enough, altho, LEGO had black/yellow timbered wall piece long ago with 6074 Black Falcon's Fortress from 1986, and later used for Black Knights Castle , they can still reference it a bit :

That horse logo really reminds me of the horse logo used for Lance from Nexo (which in itself used a rather generic horse logo, but still cool to see a medieval era faction with similar style, as Nexo suggests it's like far-future and they even have old theater play with a Yellow Castle stage, like the "old days". Not saying Nexo has to be 100% canon (as in a far-future or alternate timeline of Castle), you can think of it what you want, but still cool to see some "missing link" as horse knights did not exist yet compared to all the others.

Yes, and I have plenty of Nexo tiles I even consider useable (which have silver, gold, black or spiked shields to put them in), how silly they may sound. Like Wasp, Scorpion, various colors of dragons, axes , swords , hammers , fireballs etc or something funny like hotdog or chicken. Might not be "classic" , but still official LEGO parts and prints from 2016-2018. 2024 Dreamzz does have those purple/black copies of characters, and 71483 The Never Witch's Nightmare Creatures is a very good figure selection with 3 of them + never witch. 2025 so far has a few cool helmets and epaulets but not as impactful as 2023/2024 tbh. But I would not get the big sets just for the figures like the T rex robot or the 2025 robot.

Just recently built 60460 No Limits: Race Car Ramp Track , box image doesn't do it justice as it's much larger then it appears. Also the posters and checkered tiles are prints. And there's a lot of room underneath to build custom stuff, but they still finished it up with tiles under there. Also was really fun to see one episode of LEGO Masters 2025 Netherlands/Belgium did one episode about Soapbox cars where they had to race while losing the least pieces :)

True, 3-in-1 had been quite low on minifig sets for a while, as they did mega focus on those animals and objects, and fairground style sets have been part of the theme for a long time now , and it also comes out at the same time as a 3-in-1 Haunted House, so having 1 "happy" bright colored unicorn castle being some kids playground/bouncy castle, next to a presumed, halloweeny / ghost / skeleton / spider whatever Haunted House (unless they surprise me and go full Monster Fighters with no ticket booth and just monster/zombie/mummy minifigs etc)

After the space wave, I sort of lost interest in the theme. Both Monkie Kid and Dreamzzz partially turned into ninjago clones, at least for the vehicle based sets, such is the fate of character-based color schemes I suppose. I think LEGO really needs to change things up a bit for their next action theme and go more consistent across the board instead of per-character. I felt the 2020 Ninjago dumgeon wave did it right (mech/rhino beast also mostly optional), and even 2024/2025 City Space chose a consistent color scheme instead of color-theming their vehicles, so a fleet of interstellar space ships would not be exclusive to the darkblue pilot included, feels like themes of old, instead of the "jelly bean knight , ninja, beast has to drive vehicle of their color" trope. I mean, for Chima it still made sense as there were beast-clans , for ninjago, nexo , or monkie kid, and even dreamzzz, it's purely colored for their named character. Just an example, Classic space had near solid white/red/yellow/blue/black figures, but the vehicles did not turn into red spaceships, there were some variants of course, like grey vehicles with green or blue windows, but they did not go full red spaceships for red pilots. In hindsight, as a huge fan of the theme, even Nexo suffered from too much colored accents on the hero vehicles, moreso later on, but the villains maintained a consistent generic color scheme, at least for their year. It would look a lot more weird to see Macy (red) pilot a yellow or green vehicle of another knight with different colors and emblems, compared to seeing Lavaria or Beast Master control Jestro's Chariot (black red characters on a black/red vehicle)

Castle will go through an interesting period, with 1, possibly 2 Castle 3-in-1 sets coming (whatever that unicorn castle might be), and then as it currently seems, 2 icons sets (Lion Knights / Medieval Townsquare) possibly retiring at the end of 2025. Bricklink Designer program sets are still basicly MOC so I won't ever count those in speculations.

City / Friends space doesn't count? because it's under said City and Friends? I call those very fresh designs, Galaxy explorer and Blacktron Renegade do remaster old ones (bigger cause of 18+ nostalgia), but are ultimately remakes, City space are new, even tho they are targeted at kids age group, so was 70s-90s space. And yes, of course, I hope for full-focused Classic themes as well, with the attention on something unique like Elves, to this day does not feel like it was an action-theme clone. Monkie Kid and Dreamzzz turned into Ninjago Clones pretty much with all the mechs and vehicles , same thing happened with nexo and hidden side eventually, I do want something focused on something different, each definately have their unique things but in general they all come down to mechs, flashy characters, and vehicles/creatures for said characters, even Chima had a lot of that. Exceptions where things really stand out to me, was that 2020 Ninjago Dungeon wave, super consistent color scheme, sets that can connect, and optional mech / beast set. Current City Space has a super consistent color scheme as well (Friends has more purple but still, they did not go full nexo by making mining sets yellow, or space ships blue, or space station green).

While classic themes did indeed go away (in particular the time 2016-2019 was quite dry on truly classic sets for the last few years there have been at least 1 product available for Space, Castle and Pirates (and even more distant theme like Vikings), and I think there always will be at least 1 product for at least Pirates, Space, and Castle for the forseeable future, and I don't mean Bricklink Designer sets. And that's leaving out pseudo knights/pirates/space found in LEGO movie 1-2 and themes like Nexo or Ninjago. (and themes like Dreamzzz touched on Space and sword/bowfights in their own way) The fact that a set like 3-in-1 Pirate Ship lasted 5+ years is a testament that it still sells (but does not explain barracuda bay's rapid retirement, but it being part of IDEAS might have been part of it) Could there be more? yes. What should be the next big announced classic set? Likely Pirates, but 2026 could be interesting as end of 2025 will have 3-in-1 Pirate ship, and the 2 icons Castle set retire, but Castle does get some compensation in the form of this summer 3-in-1. Blacktron renegade is new but apparently had a planned 1.5 year span (retiring listed at July 2026)

I don't think LEGO tower is that bad, it just tries to be too many things at the same time, but it's a wacky kid's playset for sure. (60271 Main Square was also just very big mash up of things tbh worse then City Tower but that's talking in hindsight, especially with a current red train set available seperately) Downhill, yes, Downfall, no. If it remains a LEGO exclusive set, I doubt I'll ever get it. (60271 Main Square also was exclusive at the same price range, and even less pieces) 60380 Downtown was much better and not exclusive (And I still like that set more then the current iterations of Friends Mainstreet/Downtown sets they got going right now) Friends is my go-to for small/medium buildings/shops, as 3-in-1 kind of stopped those, and City has not continued their 2023 buildings). I suppose the intent of the Tower set is to mainly be a big gift set for people who see it in LEGO store, and because it's such a mashup, those kids would want more space, trains, action/skating, fire, police and construction sets City has right now, so it's also a marketing strategy, not so much AFOL targeted.

2025 Dozer set + 2024 Digger really could use a Rock Truck set in 2026, and maybe a new Wheel Loader in 2027 or something, to expand the heavy duty construction/mining setup they got going for that "elephant" logo brand.

Exactly, LEGO even had one long time ago in both Town and City Town (1996) City (2009) The last time City had a non 4+ dump truck was 2018 with the mining theme. And then there was the year 2012, a crazy year for City trucks : 2 Garbage trucks (1 closed dump) 2 normal dump truck 1 smaller and 1 huge mining dump truck 2 Transport trucks

Current known retirement date for the 60304 Road Plates is 31 december 2026, so still another full year after this, and there could be new one after that (as things like the train rail packs / switch tracks also retire that date but LEGO has pretty much always made new ones, except for when they change big systems (like 9V to battery train, or baseplate to road plate)

I like the interior of 42656 Heartlake City Airport and Airplane but the focus of that set is entirely different from 60104, where the City set is more about loading/unloading the plane, the Friends set is far more about the actual terminal and passenger "roleplay" , and probably the most "detailed" yet in that aspect, but it misses big Airport things like control tower , and the airplane is kind of secondary, no door or stair, or vehicle, or walkway or whatever to suggest boarding it. 60434 Space Base and Rocket Launchpad has like the best control tower yet, even tho it's a weird space-crane, the top part could easily be used for an airport with perhaps a few changes to the screens and radar shape.