Video games can help us explain LEGO 10320 Eldorado Fortress
The LEGO Group appears to be following in the footsteps of the video game industry for its retro sets – a hypothesis seemingly cemented by the arrival of 10320 Eldorado Fortress.
Revealed earlier this week, 10320 Eldorado Fortress is a modern reimagining of a 1989 LEGO Pirates set of the same name, 6276 Eldorado Fortress. And it’s the latest in an increasingly long line of nostalgia-fuelled products coming out of Billund, headlined by last year’s 90th-anniversary sets 10497 Galaxy Explorer and 10305 Lion Knights’ Castle.
Before those trips back through time to Classic Space and Classic Castle arrived, though, there was 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay – a LEGO Ideas set inspired by the vintage 6285 Black Seas Barracuda. You can display the set as a shipwreck, or carefully pull it apart to extract a fully-fledged Barracuda, ready to sail the seven seas. The essence of the original model remains, but there’s now a whole lot more around it.
In fact, all three of those sets share similar DNA, in that they revitalise or otherwise upgrade a classic LEGO set beyond what it originally was. 10305 Lion Knights’ Castle is the furthest removed from any one set, instead building on the aesthetics and design language of the original fortresses to deliver something entirely new; while 10497 Galaxy Explorer completely revamps 497 Galaxy Explorer for an adult audience, dramatically increasing its size in the process.
That trio are arguably also the ultimate celebration of each of their respective retro themes, and anyone searching for a Pirates equivalent of the 90th-anniversary Castle and Space sets needs only go as far as Barracuda Bay. So where does 10320 Eldorado Fortress fit into the picture? And what about the three vintage gifts-with-purchase the LEGO Group has released over the past 12 months, in 40567 Forest Hideout, 40580 Blacktron Cruiser and 40581 BIONICLE Tahu & Takua?
To better understand the LEGO Group’s differing approaches to these classic sets, we only need to turn to the video game industry. For the past couple of console generations, developers have repeatedly revisited past experiences, repackaging, remastering or otherwise remaking them for the current line-up of systems. And it’s through this lens that the retro LEGO sets start to make sense.
First, let’s identify the ways in which studios can bring their previous games to new generations of consoles. The most basic approach is through a remaster, which is pretty common in games only making a single generational leap (say, from PS3 to PS4, or PS4 to PS5). Think Grand Theft Auto V, which has been tweaked and enhanced across two different generations, or Assassin’s Creed: The Ezio Collection, which updated the graphics of three previous AC games in one remastered trilogy.
These remasters offer a refined way to enjoy the original experience you likely remember from five or 10 years ago, but they’re mostly just giving games a fresh coat of paint: nothing has fundamentally changed about the gameplay itself. It’s the surest way of pulling at those nostalgia strings, because it’s basically transporting you right back to the first time you played the game.
Then there’s the remake. This is a bit more involved, and usually sees a studio rebuild their original game from the ground up. The graphics will undoubtedly change or improve, but you’ll typically also find gameplay enhancements, more difficulty and accessibility options and occasionally brand new features. Remakes truly pull games into the modern day, often imagining what a title would have looked like if today’s resources had been available at the time it was originally developed.
In this category are video games like The Last of Us: Part I on PS5, or The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening on Nintendo Switch. The former includes improved combat, exploration and visuals to bring the experience in line with The Last of Us: Part II – released in 2020 on PS4 – while the latter revisited a 26-year-old title in 2019, building on its top-down gameplay and introducing a brand new and unique art style.
Finally, there’s the reboot: a game that takes the basic ingredients of an intellectual property and cooks up an entirely new recipe. Franchises like Tomb Raider have been rebooted more than once – most recently in the Survivor trilogy that started in 2013 – while 2016’s Hitman and 2018’s God of War would also fall into this group.
So, how does all this relate to LEGO? Well, each of the sets that have revisited vintage themes since 2020 could arguably be classified into one of the three groups outlined above.
The three gifts-with-purchase 40567 Forest Hideout, 40580 Blacktron Cruiser and 40581 BIONICLE Tahu & Takua each revamp one or more specific sets, for example, upgrading them with the present-day part palette. That’s effectively the equivalent of tweaking their graphics, so they would fall under the umbrella of remasters.
10497 Galaxy Explorer and 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay, meanwhile, pay homage to particular sets while significantly reworking them or adding brand new ideas and concepts. Sound familiar? In the video game industry, we’d call those remakes. As for 10305 Lion Knights’ Castle: that’s a reboot, plain and simple. No LEGO castle has ever been as ambitious or gargantuan as that 4,514-piece epic, after all – even while it cherry-picks specific factions and features from the halcyon days of the theme.
Which brings us to 10320 Eldorado Fortress. Where does that fit into the pack? It’s actually trickier than you might think to classify: while it initially looks like a straightforward remaster, updating things like its raised baseplate with a brick-built base (another nice video game analogy – goodbye low-res graphics, hello detailed, hi-res textures), we also need to consider where it goes above and beyond 6276 Eldorado Fortress.
That’s not only with the addition of its small galleon ship, extracted and remastered from 6277 Imperial Trading Post, but also through its surplus cannons, palm trees and animals, and perhaps more importantly through its modular design language. Unlike 6276, which was all anchored to the one large, immovable 3D baseplate, 10320 Eldorado Fortress can be snapped apart and reconfigured into a wider and more dramatic stronghold.
In short: not only does 10320 Eldorado Fortress update the original set’s visuals, but it also introduces new features and concepts. So we’re basically in remake territory, much the same as 10497 Galaxy Explorer and 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay. And that splits the three different categories cleanly: small gifts-with-purchase are pure remasters; larger sets aim for remakes of their original inspiration; while the biggest of them all – to date, only 10305 Lion Knights’ Castle – is a pure reboot.
All of this is to say that a template is seemingly beginning to emerge for the LEGO Group’s reimaginings of classic sets – one that may guide its approach for any more that might follow. None are confirmed as of yet, but the company is clearly content to keep the nostalgia party going long after its 90th anniversary is in the rearview mirror.
Next up is rumoured to be a Classic Castle gift-with-purchase that brings the good wizard Majisto back to shelves (again – he’s technically already reappeared, in plain clothes, in 10305 Lion Knights’ Castle). If the structure outlined here holds true, we’re expecting a remaster of a vintage set like 6048 Majisto’s Magical Workshop or 6020 Magic Shop. That’s still just a rumour for the time being, though, so take it with a pinch of salt for now.
10320 Eldorado Fortress launches July 4 for VIP members (and July 7 for everyone else), and will retail for £189.99 / $214.99 / €214.99.
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- I like to think of myself as a journalist first, LEGO fan second, but we all know that’s not really the case. Journalism does run through my veins, though, like some kind of weird literary blood – the sort that will no doubt one day lead to a stress-induced heart malfunction. It’s like smoking, only worse. Thankfully, I get to write about LEGO until then.
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