Following massive hits of 10497 Galaxy Explorer and 10305 Lion Knights’ Castle, this summer LEGO revives yet another classic, spoiling fans with the new 10320 Eldorado Fortress set. A 2,509-piece diorama, fusing two iconic Pirates set together, will go on sale on July 4th (for LEGO VIP members) / July 7th for everyone else for US $214.99 | CAN $279.99 | UK £189.99.
The new set brings the classic fort in the new, reworked design, along with tow boats: a larger ship with sails made of fabric, and a small boat.
Eldorado Fortress is based on the old version of the fort, set 6276, which was released back in 1989. While the original model consisted of a little bit over 500 pieces, the new products is a massive 2,500 build. Though, the scale and the size of the structures is pretty much the same.
It’s easy to notice that the original set did not include any sail boats. This is where the design team improvised to bring yet another Pirates classic — a ship from 6277 Imperial Trading Post set from 1992.
Eldorado Fortress can boast modularity. The model can either be grouped all together or stretched in a thin line for a stunning display on a bookshelf.
According to the press release, LEGO’s decision to dive back into the Pirates team was influenced by the fans’ massive demand for the theme seen with lots of submissions and activity on the Ideas platform.
Check out the full gallery below.
Its a bit tough to tell from these images, but it seems like a decent percent of the piece-count is invested in the brick-built replica of the old dimensional baseplate. I get the reasoning but that might make it a tough sell for me. I would have liked to see more of that $200 price point poured into the above-ground detail. Have to see some more images to make the call I guess.
I’m really disappointed by the inclusion of the small ship (It’s not big enough to look good, and just siphons resources and attention away from the main draw of the fort), and the weirdly-literal adherence to the original set. I don’t want it to look like a more detailed version of the exact same old-school blueprint, I want it to look like the solid design of a more realistic fort that’s a beefed-up version of the old, antiquated set.
Since it splits entirely apart, I’m holding onto some small hope that there is a very interesting “underground” portion of the set that simply isn’t in any of their photos for… some reason.
While I’m at it, let’s mention that they didn’t bother with ANY printing or dual-molding on any of the minifigs’ arms and legs, and that takes a pretty big chunk of coolness away from this by itself. And they threw in another one of those wretched old parrots with the same weird coloration? This thing just looks old, in bad ways. Very bizarre, considering how successfully they redesigned the other grandiose throwback sets.
Eldorado Fortress looks great, I wanted to share my Bricklink Designer Program Series 2 build: Imperial Brig for any classic pirates fans looking for more nostalgic builds:
https://www.bricklink.com/v3/designer-program/series-2/834/Imperial-Brig
Website is saying July 1st for VIPs
I feel this set falls extremely short of what I, and probably many other AFOLs, want to see in this sort of revisit.
Especially because this was one of the three sets I wanted revisited.
The set needs to meet the relative size and what we saw in our minds. It should be about 64 x 64 x 72 studs in size, effectively we’re twice as big as we were back then, so it needs to be scaled up.
The detail and sprawl should be this glorious tribute to our imaginations. Still minifigure scale, but with more stairs and levels and nuances.
I want to see an AFOL scale and detail envisioning of this great set that made such an impact on our youth, not a crunchy, brick-built replacement for the base and a reminder about how modern lego designers can make nice models and franchise tie-ins but rarely anything with a soul.
Tough crowd. This looks pretty great to my eyes. I’d be all over it if I were a pirate theme fan.