LEGO VIDIYO might have flopped, but its legacy lives on

LEGO VIDIYO might not have been the hit the LEGO Group was hoping for, but its legacy lives on in 2024 – and in more ways than one…

The LEGO Group’s most recent physical incarnation of the ‘how do you do, fellow kids’ meme, LEGO VIDIYO landed on shelves in 2021 to a mixed reception. Well, that might be underselling it: the theme’s reliance on a janky app, combined with its relatively limited builds (especially at entry-level price points), saw the LEGO Group bin the entire thing off in 2022.

But that doesn’t mean LEGO VIDIYO was entirely without value. For one thing, it taught the LEGO Group an important lesson in what fans want from their LEGO – more builds, fewer apps – so that when the company’s next homegrown theme came along last year in the form of LEGO DREAMZzz, it did so without a hint of technology in sight.

More pressingly, VIDIYO – which seemingly boasted the budget of several years of any other theme all in one go – has proven a fruitful source of useful minifigure elements in the years since it debuted. Pieces designed for its sets and blind-boxed minifigures continue to show up in other themes, which might not otherwise have been able to justify devising brand new moulds – but which benefit tenfold from their existence.

Take the Candy Mermaid’s hairpiece, for example, which popped up in last year’s LEGO Harry Potter 76420 Triwizard Tournament: The Black Lake, recoloured in medium nougat for the model’s Merperson. Or Dani Dennison’s dual-moulded witch’s hat and hair element, which was originally designed for VIDIYO – but never released – before finding a home in 21341 Disney Hocus Pocus: The Sanderson Sisters’ Cottage.

And then there’s the dragon minifigure head mould, which debuted with 43108 Bandmates Series 2 in blue and 43109 Metal Dragon BeatBox in red, and is about to return in green in 21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale. It’s the perfect piece for Alax Jadescales the Dragonborn, as the character is known, but it never would have existed without VIDIYO.

Yes, the LEGO Ideas team might have been able to justify creating a new mould for the minifigure in Lucas Bolt’s Dungeons & Dragons set, but it would probably have come at the cost of some other element in the 3,745-piece model. Lead designer Mark Stafford has already explained that much of the set’s budget was devoted to new parts or recolours for the minifigures or creatures, at the expense of recoloured standard elements for the build, so there wasn’t much room to play with.

In that sense, it’s a good thing LEGO VIDIYO came along when it did. Harry Potter, Hocus Pocus and now Dungeons & Dragons have all benefited from the theme’s influx of new parts, and more sets and franchises could well continue to do so in the years to come. So next time you’re looking at your pile of BeatBoxes and wondering why they’re still taking up precious space in your LEGO room, just think: it wasn’t all for nothing.

21348 Dungeons & Dragons: Red Dragon’s Tale launches on April 1 for LEGO Insiders for £314.99 / $359.99 / €359.99. Take a closer look at the minifigures in our in-depth review.

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