Hello to 2025’s stealth LEGO Collectible Minifigures series

The LEGO Group’s latest Collectibles series may drive away from minifigures, but no bother: there’s a stealth CMF series on the way in June…

While there’s plenty to love about 71049 F1 Collectible Race Cars, there’s one universal truth about this latest blind-boxed series that you can’t get away from: it’s hoovered up a slot in the release calendar that would traditionally have brought us a dozen new Collectible Minifigures. The LEGO Group is seemingly cognisant of that fact, however, given the timing of the newly-revealed 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine.

For all intents and purposes, this feels like a LEGO Ideas set designed to give us a new line of Collectible Minifigures all in one box. Consider first that Rob Vangansewinkel’s original pitch for the Minifigure Prize Machine included just six minifigures, and 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine has bumped that number up to a lofty 16 for the finished product.

Then factor in that there are four repeated minifigures across that deck – with two teal astronauts, two pearl gold astronauts, two Griffin Knights and two Kraken Knights in the box – and you’re left with exactly 12 unique minifigures… or the same number you’d find in a Collectible Minifigures series. And like several blind-boxed (and blind-bagged) series before it, there’s even a singular theme binding all but two of these together.

We’re talking there about the focus on LEGO history, because 10 of these unique minifigures draw on LEGO Space, Castle, Pirates, Paradisa and Fabuland – classic ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s themes – while the remaining two recreate the fan designer and LEGO designer responsible for bringing 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine to shelves.

The additional copies of the Castle and Space-themed minifigures also feel like a nod to the characters that we would all inevitably buy multiple copies of if this was a traditional LEGO Collectible Minifigures series, and their role within this set – which is to say free of any relevant context, like a spaceship or castle – hews closely to the approach of the CMF line.

Finally, there’s the very nature of this vending machine, which serves up a surprise minifigure every time you pop a coin-decorated tile into the slot and turn the dial – just like how the LEGO Group hopes to serve up a surprise minifigure with every CMF box (at least for those fans who aren’t using Brick Search to scan the boxes).

If you’re smarting over the absence of a more conventional Collectible Minifigures series to get your hands on at this time of year, set your sights on 21358 Minifigure Vending Machine in June. It’s available first to LEGO Insiders from June 1, then everyone else from June 4, for £149.99 / $179.99 / €169.99, with 1,343 pieces and 16 minifigures included in the box.

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