Category Archives: News

Stay current on the latest news and information about LEGO, from sales & deals to new set announcements. We also cover LEGO events and conventions all over the world.

LEGO Ideas 21360 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory: Candy is dandy but plastic’s fantastic [Review]

Brennen (Brickbot_Studio) here again, and today we’re taking a trip back to 1971 with one of the strangest, most whimsical LEGO Icons sets yet. 21360 Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is based directly on Mel Stuart’s classic film and brings one of cinema’s most surreal settings to brick form. With a full cast of kids, a couple of Oompa Loompas, the eccentric chocolatier himself, and a gorgeous recreation of the Chocolate Room, this set is packed with nostalgia, clever features, and just enough weirdness to feel true to the movie. Let’s unwrap this baby and see if it contains a Golden Ticket.

LEGO Ideas 21360 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory | 2025 Pieces | Available September 15 |US $219.99 | CAN $279.99 | UK £199.99

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Click to read our scrumdiddlyumptious review!

The Brothers Brick is funded by our readers and the community. Articles may include affiliate links, and when you purchase products from those links, TBB may earn a commission that helps support the site.

Adapting a sweet idea into LEGO 21360 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory took more than pure imagination [News]

The LEGO Ideas program lets the community vote on which concepts might become official sets. Adapting fan designs into an official set always involves changes – both compromises and upgrades. The next fan-designed set, LEGO Ideas 21360 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, announced today, introduced many unique challenges for the design team. You can read our review here or keep reading to see more official pics of this sweet set and learn some behind-the-scenes stories of how the design team arrived at the finished model.

LEGO Ideas 21360 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory | 2025 Pieces | Available September 15 |US $219.99 | CAN $279.99 | UK £199.99

Learn more about LEGO’s delicious new Ideas set

Traveler’s Tales LEGO Batman returns, goes hard [News & Commentary]

LEGO’s first decade of software products were decidedly kid-centric, with titles like LEGO Island, LEGO Racers, and LEGO Friends. 2005’s LEGO Star Wars from developer Traveler’s Tale changed the script with a goofy multiplayer adventure that fans of all ages could enjoy. The slapstick, sight gags, and dad jokes helped establish the tone that would become synonymous with minifigs across media, and the focus on collecting minifigs was both delightful and prescient. Over 20 years, the Traveler’s Tale partnership spawned roughly 3 dozen spins on the classic formula, with the brick takes on Batman being among the best entries. Last night, LEGO and Traveler’s tale revealed the next game to carry on that legacy. Batman’s back, baby. And this time he’s watched the Nolan films.

Read on for our take on the next Batman game

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for August 16, 2025 [News]

In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders worldwide, The Brothers Brick brings you the best LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the 2nd week of August 2025.

TBB NEWS AND REVIEWS This last week may have been light on news, but it was big on features, with the first part of our daily roundups for Vignette week, with colorful builds daily based on a single word prompt. Also, to celebrate just how awesome everyone is, we reminded our readers that the colorful and inclusive set LEGO 40516 Everyone is Awesome is still available for purchase on LEGO.com, four years after its release. Just imagine for a moment just how bland life would be if LEGO elements were only available in limited colors… This iconic set celebrates the magic of accepting everyone as they are. For even more news and reviews, be sure to check out last week’s Brick Report.

[NEWS] Everyone is Awesome set still available, still essential — The best source for multiple minifigs in a rainbow of colors, this set is an awesome pic, even after 4 years.
[EDITORIAL] LEGO reveals two new NIKE sets, further blurring the line between play and advertising — Creative branding, or cash grab? The latest sets from LEGO + Nike team-up.

TBB FEATURES & INTERVIEWS Over the past few days, we have been showcasing some of our favorite builds created for Vignweek, and we’re only halfway through. Already, the one-word prompts, such as momochromatic and nautical, have inspired some truly eye-catching builds, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of the week reveals.

[FEATURE] Beyond the spider-verse – these creepy fantasy minifigs and creature builds will catch you in their web — The more legs the merrier with these creepy, crawly creations inspired by arachnids.
[FEATURE] Huzzah, LEGO Castle fans! Your Summer Joust 2025 winners have been crowned — One of the busiest LEGO-building contests of the summer has just announced the winning entries.
[FEATURE] Returning to Medina Al Musawrah – the massive Middle Eastern city collab from LEGO legends — A truly stunning collaborative build of a city filled with delightful details.
[FEATURE] Digging up some awesome LEGO vignettes as Vignweek 2025 kicks off — Uncover our favorite archeological builds from the first day of Vignette week.
[FEATURE] Vignweek Day 2: Color us impressed with these monochrome creations — If you thought monochromatic minifig habitats were cool, check out these scenes built using only one visible color.
[FEATURE] Fishing up some amazing nautical LEGO scenes from Vignweek Day 3 –Dive deep into the latest round of LEGO vignettes built around the prompt: Nautical.
[FEATURE] Life is a LEGO highway as Vignweek Day 4 goes road tripping — The intrepid vignweek builders hit the road with vignettes themed around travel.

Read all the rest of the LEGO news from around the web

Everyone is Awesome set still available, still essential [News]

Four years after its debut, LEGO 40516 Everyone Is Awesome is still available in LEGO stores. Upon its release, LEGO VP of Design and set creator Matthew Ashton said, “I wanted to create a model that symbolizes inclusivity and celebrates everyone, no matter how they identify or who they love.” The message remains even more essential today. If you haven’t picked up the set, now’s the perfect time. With an impressive 11 minifigs, you won’t find a better battle pack for the struggles that matter.

40516 Everyone Is Awesome | 346 pieces | US $34.99 | CAN $44.99 | UK £30.99

LEGO reveals two new NIKE sets, further blurring the line between play and advertising [Editorial]

The line between toy and advertisement has long been blurry. From Howdy Doody to He-Man to Paw Patrol, children’s programming is often a thinly veiled commercial for products. Over the past few decades, fandom has morphed from a community-driven passion into corporate cultivation and exploitation of IP. Now fandom has evolved from selling products to selling a “lifestyle,” something you can see in LEGO’s growing focus on display over play.

There are few brands that understand how to sell a lifestyle as well as Nike, which makes LEGO’s partnership with the athletic company a perfect match for this moment. With one product on their shelf, a young person can express both their creative spirit and their drive for athletic performance. It’s a no-compromise explosion of excellence for ages 10+.

Click to read our full thoughts on the new NIKE set reveals

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for August 9, 2025 [News]

In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders worldwide, The Brothers Brick brings you the best LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the 1st week of August 2025.

TBB NEWS AND REVIEWS While the week was a bit light on news and reviews, we did feature a review of the One Piece minifigures available now, and the latest LEGO Ideas set, Italian Riviera, which was announced in late July, is available now for LEGO insiders to satisfy your LEGO modular cravings until later this year. You can keep the review magic alive with last week’s Brick Report.

[REVIEW] Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate fig look-see! A custom minifig creator reviews the new One Piece Minifigs — Our TBB Guest Reviewer breaks down a collection of One Piece minifigures from the new wave of sets announced earlier this year.

TBB FEATURES & INTERVIEWS Hey TBB readers… if you plan to attend BrickCon Seattle this September, and you want to join us in our Steampunk Collaborative display, be sure to check out our announcement post. We’re putting together a steampunk world’s fair, we’re calling Royal Exposition 1898. We posted some standards in the announcement post, along with a link to the Discord server for more information.

[FEATURE] Learn how to master Brick-Built Water with this free LEGO ebook from Exe Sandbox — This free water-building guide is full of great ideas for your next custom LEGO creation.
[FEATURE] Now this is Pod Racing! The most wizard LEGO Pod Racers in the galaxy — It may not be Boonta Eve yet, but any time of year is a good time for podracing.
[FEATURE] Minifig Monday: These golden K-Pop Demon Hunter LEGO creations are sweet as soda pop — The hit Netflix movie K-Pop Demon Hunters was full of colorful characters, many of which have been re-created in LEGO and featured in a unique look.

Read all the rest of the LEGO news from around the web

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate fig look-see! A custom minifig creator reviews the new One Piece Minifigs [Review]

In Japan, One Piece popularity is as big as it gets, with the best-selling manga of all time and box office revenue equal to the entire run of MCU films. The Netflix live action series bucked the trend of awful anime adaptations with a faithful retelling that embraced everything that makes the series wonderful, no matter how weird it might sound on paper. Now LEGO continues the streak of expanding One Piece’s global domination with a line of sets that show that the vibrant pirate fantasy is an ideal fit for bricks. Today we’re joined by a special guest reviewer, a legendary scoundrel from the custom minifig scene with a penchant for peglegs and all things pirate: Captain Dark Shark. So hop aboard for reviews of the figs from One Piece 7536 Windmill Village Hut, 7537 Buggy the Clown’s Circus Tent, and 7538 Battle at Arlong Park, as well as custom creations from the Cap’n using the new elements.

Next stop, the Grand Line and our review of the new One Piece minifigs

TBB Weekly Brick Report: LEGO news roundup for August 2, 2025 [News]

In addition to the amazing LEGO models created by builders worldwide, The Brothers Brick brings you the best LEGO news and reviews. This is our weekly Brick Report for the 4th week of July 2025.

TBB NEWS AND REVIEWS This week, we had a few reviews from the Creator line, including a neat new version of the Kingdom Joust set. A new excavator from the Technic theme, and an update to the 2014 MTT with Separatist colors. We also announced our TBB-sponsored collaborative display at Brickcon 2025, a steampunk-style world’s fair. Keep reading for more news and reviews in week’s Brick Report.

[NEWS] August LEGO Star Wars sets and Soundwave now available — Catch up on August’s additions to the Star Wars and Transformers lines, in a busy month of releases.
[REVIEW] LEGO Creator 3-in-1 31167 Haunted Mansion: Ghosts, graveyards, and ghoulish monsters — Three ghastly, ghoulish builds in one set.
[REVIEW] LEGO Creator 3-in-1 31168 Medieval Horse Knight Castle: A kingdom of versatility — A new castle set featuring what may be a new faction, Horse Knights.
[REVIEW] LEGO Technic 42215 Volvo EC500 Hybrid Excavator – Worth its weight? — A stocky new excavator with plenty of features.
[NEWS] Announcing TBB’s Steampunk collaborative display at BrickCon 2025 — We’re hosting a collaborative display at Brickcon 2025 in September in TBB’s home territory. Check out our announcement post, and the new channel on discord
[REVIEW] LEGO Star Wars 74535 Battle of Felucia Separatist MTT — We got a good look at the new MTT, and compared it to the previous version in our full review.

TBB FEATURES & INTERVIEWS

[INTERVIEW] Zen and the art of building LEGO Castles with Cathedral of Bricks — We sat down for a chat with Luke, a builder who came to LEGO later in life and is making waves with impressive castle builds.
[INTERVIEW] Bricks of questionable character: We chat with internet phenom, Iain Heath — TBB talked with alum and internet-famous meme-builder Iain Heath about his creations and the state of the LEGO landscape.

August LEGO Star Wars sets and Soundwave now available [News]

May the Fourth may be behind us, but that doesn’t mean we’re done for big LEGO Star Wars set drops! Several LEGO themes are getting set releses this month, including Creator and Wicked, but the big draw for many fans will be the next line of Star Wars sets hitting shelves. We’ve been gradually reviewing them over the last few weeks, and if our reviews whetted your appetite, now you can get your hands on these new sets from a galaxy far, far away. It’s not all Star Wars, though – the third large-scale Transformer set, 10358 Transformers: Soundwave, will also be available in just a few days’ time.

There are plenty of others newly available – be sure to head over to LEGO.com (US | CAN | UK) to see what else is new!

Take a look at the galaxy far, far away’s latest offerings here!

LEGO Technic 42215 Volvo EC500 Hybrid Excavator – Worth its weight? [Review]

For anyone fascinated with mechanisms and moving parts, watching heavy machinery work can be mesmerizing. The modern marvels of industry surely showcase some of the greatest advancements in human history, and one of the big players in heavy equipment today is Volvo. The Swedish neighbor shares similar values with LEGO, and that’s why it makes perfect sense that they would pair together to bring some of Volvo’s latest hybrid earth-movers to the Technic line. We’ve already covered the LEGO Technic 42209 Wheel Loader , but the other sets in the series all seem to be the lead-up for the biggest yet. Enter the LEGO Technic 42215 Volvo EC500 Hybrid Excavator. This 2359-piece motorized model will be available starting August 1st, retailing for US $429.99 | CAN $499.99 | UK £349.99. Join us as we unearth whether it’s worth its price tag.

The LEGO Group provided The Brothers Brick with an early copy of this set for review. Providing TBB with products for review guarantees neither coverage nor positive reviews.

Continue reading →

Announcing TBB’s Steampunk collaborative display at BrickCon 2025 [News]

Summer is here, and that means another Brickcon is right around the corner. We had a great time hosting our collaborative display last year, featuring botanical scenes of all shapes, sizes, and scales — there were some truly amazing builds. This year, we want to showcase something a little more ambitious! We hope our community of builders and convention-goers is equally excited to join us in a steampunk world’s fair that we’re calling the Royal Exposition 1898!

Think of a version of a world’s fair like the famous 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, but with a steampunk twist. Monowheel vehicles, airships, pavilion booths, Victorian architecture, walking platforms — the only limit is your imagination. We’ll set up a channel on our Discord and provide some building standards after the jump, and in that channel.

Read on for more details