There’s a new rumor going around that Animal Crossing is the next Lego video game crossover.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, dataminers claimed that a few sets, leaked with their prices and numbers of pieces, are for Animal Crossing. These are the set numbers, alongside prices and numbers of pieces:
- Set 77046 – $14.99 (170 pieces)
- Set 77047 – $19.99 (164 pieces)
- Set 77048 – $29.99 (233 pieces)
- Set 77049 – $39.99 (389 pieces)
- Set 77050 – $74.99 (535 pieces)
These Animal Crossing playsets will also come with minifigures of familiar characters, that will have custom heads, as opposed to following the universal head pattern that other Lego minifigures have.
Lego has seen a lot of success with their video game themed sets for the past few years. Thus far, Lego video game licensees have included Atari, Sonic the Hedgehog, Horizon Forbidden West, and Minecraft.
As you may imagine, the most substantial license Lego has had in this realm is Nintendo. They started out with a somewhat modest NES Lego set, but the big one they clearly invested about everything else is Adventures With Mario.
While Adventures With Mario doesn’t interact or cross over with any Mario video games, Nintendo and Lego have worked to make it a unique interactive experience, even compared to other Lego sets. Lego figures for Mario, Peach, and others have small screens and speakers, so that they can interact with other Lego pieces in the playset. Players can build stages and sets to make use of these interactions. There is also a companion app that teaches players how to build these playsets.
Adventures With Mario was a notable investment, and is substantially more successful at a higher level, compared to Lego’s other playsets, licensed or not. So it is certainly a big deal if Nintendo and Lego are looking to expand with Animal Crossing.
Animal Crossing itself crossed over into one of the pillars of Nintendo on the Switch. As of March 31, 2023, Animal Crossing: New Horizons has sold over 40 million units on the portable console hybrid.
However, prior to this, Animal Crossing had a failed push towards toys-to-life with 2015’s Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival on the Wii U. Now, let’s not revise history here: the Wii U has had its successful franchises, including Splatoon, and the highest sales numbers for its versions of Smash Bros and Mario Kart 8 at the time each game was released.
But Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival was a poorly conceived party game. This was not because the game itself isn’t fun, but because it was designed to get players to buy multiple amiibos. While some Nintendo fans were whales with amiibos, Nintendo got too aggressive by making large stocks of both figure and card Animal Crossing amiibos, and not bundling a lot of amiibos with the game itself.
If this rumor is true, hopefully, Nintendo has learned its lesson, or at the very least, delegated the decision making on this with Lego. Lego’s rumored sets are undoubtedly expensive, but they also pack in tons of pieces, so Lego players don’t complain about perceived value. After all, Animal Crossing fans don’t have the disposable incomes of Warhammer 40,000 fans.
Maybe this time Nintendo will get it right in making the Animal Crossing toys right for their fans.
