New LEGO City Missions sets swap traditional instructions for interactive storybuilding

May 10, 2022 | 16

LEGO have announced three new LEGO City Missions sets, introducing a new, interactive experience for younger fans to encourage imagination and creativity with their builds.

There are three sets in the wave, and they’ll be released globally on 1 June 2022 from LEGO.com, and most toy stores.

• 60353 Wild Animal Rescue Missions – US$39.99 / AU$49.99 / £24.99
• 60354 Mars Spacecraft Exploration Missions – US$39.99 / AU$49.99 / £24.99
• 60355 Water Police Detective Missions – US$39.99 / AU$49.99 / £24.99

The key difference about this sub-theme of LEGO City sets are that they do away with traditional LEGO instructions, making the build process entirely interactive.

You’ll need to download the LEGO Digital Building Instructions app, which will then transport your child into an awesome world of interactive adventures and missions to be solved through instruction-free building challenges and engagement with on-screen characters.

For the initial wave, LEGO City Missions launches with three new sets based on animal rescue, space exploration and police detective mysteries.

Each model is accompanied by an interactive story, with each story containing eight distinctive missions. Children will be given inspiration for core model builds, which they will then be encouraged to constantly rebuild and adapt to the different scenarios, prompts and missions they encounter throughout each story.

With LEGO City Missions LEGO have worked hard to ensure a strong balance of storytelling to get children started on their builds but also to give them open tasks to complete and allow for individual interpretation.

LEGO 60353 City Wild Animal Rescue Missions set lets children build and create to save the day. Utilizing the core model, the rescue pick-up truck, kids will be able to rebuild and accessorize their set as they solve missions throughout the story. Through the digital stories, kids will play the lead by interacting with onscreen characters such as Westbrook, Jessica Sharpe and Fendrich to solve challenges throughout their build experience and rescue animals around town from sticky situations.

LEGO 60354 CITY Mars Spacecraft Exploration Missions build launches children on a thrilling adventure aboard the space shuttle to explore Mars! Grab the spacecraft to customize and complete fun missions through the digital story provided. Featuring Astronaut Lt. Rivera and Dr. Wexler, children will find endless joy and excitement as they work with these in-app characters to explore space and Mars.

LEGO 60355 City Water Police Detective Missions gives children an opportunity to join the LEGO CITY Police team and solve the ocean mystery. Children will customize the police boat with accessories like a camera, trophy, diver mask, handcuffs, walkie-talkie and more to play detective and work with favorite characters like Chief Wheeler and Gracie Goodhart to accomplish tasks at hand. And don’t forget to grab your favorite furry pal to help with the job.

The sets seem like decent value, and the parts selection does seem quite generous. I don’t know how well the app and entire experience will work, but this should make for a fun, interactive play experience for kids.

The downside is that you’ll need a tablet or smartphone to build these sets, and get the full experience. With the challenges and missions, I also assume that you’ll get a bit more extended play, as you transform the models, to complete different missions.

And hey, app gimmick oesn’t really appeal to you, we can at least appreciate all the nods to LEGO Classic Space, and what I think is a mars-inspired spin on the beloved LEGO Classic Space logo in 60354 Mars Spacecraft Exploration Missions!

What do you think of this? As a parent, I think this could be quite fun, but I’ll need to test this out with my daughter to see how seamless it works.

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