Lego Pokémon is one thing I’ve needed for so long as I’ve been conscious of each manufacturers. It’s maybe the most important cross-section of my pursuits, which implies when the unique units had been first rumoured final 12 months, I couldn’t consider my luck. I’m removed from the one particular person on this boat.
By most metrics, Pokémon is the biggest media franchise on this planet. Combining that with Lego is a dream for followers, however when the road launched earlier this 12 months, not everybody was on board with how Lego and Pokémon’s partnership has begun.
On the Pokémon World Championships 2026 & Pokémon XP in San Francisco, California, I sat down with Siddharth Muthyala, design director at Lego, and Mike Kirk Andersen, senior interplay designer, to talk about Lego Pokémon, the fanbase-dividing Sensible Brick, and the way forward for adult-focused units.
So, with greater than 1000 Pokémon to choose, I needed to know the way the workforce at Lego went about selecting the debutants for this new space of Pokémon merchandise, after the names Pikachu and Charizard had been positioned firmly on the prime of the record.
“Robust query proper off the bat,” Muthyala laughed. “As you talked about, there’s loads of Pokémon to select from. I feel for us, all of it got here right down to an assortment and a spread of Pokémon that kids discover thrilling, can determine with, can acknowledge, and have a connection to.
“So it wasn’t chosen out of the blue. We did have a number of Pokémon that we’ve been enjoying with and did loads of playtests and I feel we’ve completed playtests with a number of hundred kids. We at all times ask them, proper, what’s your favourite, which one? After which by way of that, favourite floor, after which we additionally work with The Pokémon Firm to work by way of our record of Pokémon as effectively.
“Nevertheless it all comes right down to play. So what’s probably the most enjoyable Pokémon you’ll be able to construct that matches in a toddler’s hand, that may fly, that may swim, that may stroll, and all of that, and make a listing from that.”
Lego Pokémon comes at a time of main transition for Lego. The lately launched Sensible Brick, which debuted within the Lego Star Wars line final 12 months, has divided followers. For youthful members of the viewers, it’s a new, forward-looking strategy to work together with Lego, turning the constructing brick into extra of a digital toy.
A Sensible Brick can play sounds, react to different Sensible Bricks, and extra. It’s an evolution of the know-how discovered within the Lego Tremendous Mario line from just a few years in the past. Nonetheless, grownup followers nonetheless aren’t totally satisfied. The Lego Pokémon line has thus far been cut up between Sensible Brick units aimed toward a youthful viewers and a sequence of bigger, collector’s fashions aimed toward older followers.
I requested the Lego workforce when it was determined that Sensible Brick could be so integral to the Lego Pokémon line.
“Yeah, it was truly very early on,” Anderson advised me.
“I feel as quickly as we began assembly children and we began to additionally perceive what they wish to play. We discovered that they wish to be the coach, and so they wish to go on the journey as a coach with their Pokémon and the Sensible Brick, and that know-how simply matches so effectively into that storyline after we can deliver them alive.
“I additionally assume after we began actually understanding that we now have one thing is then after the take a look at they wouldn’t like go to sit down and I and say thanks for taking part in they’d go to the Pokémon that they’d been spending time with give them slightly high-five and say to us, ‘Hey please watch out with my Squirtle,’ I feel that’s after we begin to actually perceive we’ve bought one thing particular right here.”
Having now spent extra time with the Sensible Brick know-how, I’m assured that if this existed within the early 2000s, I might have been obsessive about it. Positive, the variety of precise interactions between the Pokémon aren’t going to wow older followers, nevertheless it’s very simple to think about the depth it provides to imaginative play.
It nonetheless isn’t massively interesting to me as an older fan, however Pokémon is a franchise constructed on its capacity to introduce itself to a brand new era of children each couple of years. Right now’s Sensible Brick Pokémon units will likely be what youngsters a decade from now discover nostalgic, in the identical approach I lengthy for my Lego Star Wars prequel units. It’s not likely for us, and that’s high-quality.
Nonetheless, one factor of the Sensible Brick that shocked me was the noises that the Lego Pokémon make. Within the online game aspect of Pokémon, Pokémon virtually universally let loose a singular cry. This has been the case for the reason that debut of the franchise. When the Pokémon anime was launched, it was established that Pokémon would solely say their very own identify (save for just a few high-profile exemptions). When it was introduced that the Sensible Brick Pokémon would make sounds, many followers assumed it might be one of many different; nonetheless, it’s neither.
“One thing that’s like tremendous cool concerning the Smartbrick is that truly what sits inside it’s a synthesizer,” Muthyala defined. “So it’s like an instrument. We don’t file something. There’s no audio within the brick. All the pieces is created once you’re enjoying with it.
“So when Pikachu does one thing, it mainly presses one of many keys. And that’s why, really, truly, when Pikachu comes alive, it’s barely completely different each time as a result of it’s been completed on the go, and that’s how we will scale it throughout so many Lego Pokémon, and we will nonetheless match the shape issue. So it’s actually us attempting to create a brand new language that matches inside the know-how and nonetheless is true to the voice of the Pokémon.”
Whereas the Sensible Brick Pokémon units may not be for the older fan, Lego aren’t ignoring the large, and little doubt very profitable, older fanbase both. Thus far, the biggest units within the Pokémon line have been aimed toward older, nostalgic followers by way of a big concentrate on the primary era of Pokémon.
Nonetheless, lately, a set that includes Rayquaza and Zinnia was launched. Whereas loads of followers will know Rayquaza because the field legendary from Pokémon Emerald, most Pokémon followers will don’t know who Zinnia is. Debuting as an essential NPC in Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, Zinnia is extra recognized to fashionable followers for her appearances alongside Rayquaza on Pokémon Buying and selling Card Recreation playing cards.
By any stretch, it is a deep lower. I counsel to Lego that whereas Rayquaza is clearly a preferred choose, the concept of together with Zinnia as one of many first Pokémon minifigures will need to have come from an enormous fan.
“I feel that’s exactly it,” mentioned Muthyala. “So our workforce, so Mike and I work with a workforce of, I might say, simply 40 to 50 designers, not simply mannequin designers, it’s components, it’s graphics, it’s interplay, it’s constructing instruction designers, researchers, all of that.
“So it’s an enormous workforce, which additionally implies that we now have lots of people on the workforce who’re followers of Pokémon. So the deep-cut concepts, the references to the lore, it’s all there on function as a result of it’s stuff that we’ve grown up with and issues that we wish to see as effectively, and references that we expect ought to exist.
“We put that out concepts after which we work with The Pokémon Firm Worldwide as effectively to emphasize take a look at concepts. ‘Can we put in these minifigures?’ However for us it’s doing one thing genuine to the lore and doing one thing that’s magical, sudden and do one thing for us, for youths.”
Anderson added, “Like we now have the children lineup however then we additionally acknowledge that everybody needs to construct and be a part of the journey so we wish to do this in several methods in fact.”
The newest wave of Lego Pokémon units will likely be launched on October 1.
