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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Love the set however I don’t love that my son has to use my phone to build it. It’s a great concept however they really need printable instructions available somewhere so my son can build it without the added screen time.
My boy is autistic, and loves building to the plans.
I saw the mars set reduced to clear, and had been waiting for it to do that, so picked one up cheap. At the time, he was still saying he didn’t want it, as it didn’t have “structions”
that changed pretty fast when we got it home, and he asked more questions about how it worked. We’ve been using an ipad as an electronic ‘instruction book’ for a long time, since it lets us carry all the booklets in a single device, and we can add pdf alt builds for the sets he owns (like the tatooine hover car alt for the pirate ship set, so chuffed to build that one).
Unfortunately, Lego made it very hard to, firstly, FIND the app. There is no “lego building instructions app”. it is called “lego builder”. and then, it turns out you need ios 13 to even run it. (and we buy 2nd hand and clearance lego, and have a very out of date tablet) So we are currently unable to play the game as intended.
It is a bit of a long term worry. The set won’t really have any utility even a few years out from production, since the app support will be pulled, and then its just more bits for the free play bits box. As such, its a little too expensive as bulk lego is far cheaper than the boxed and designed builds. I guess the plan is to slowly move more to free play as his skills and confidence in being more like Emmet grow…
still, bad start 😀
NO GOOD FOR MY SON AS HE IS AUTISTIC AND HAS TO HAVE THE PAPER INSTRUCTIONS! THIS IS NOT FAIR ON HIM AS HE IS A COLLECTOR OF LEGO CITY. HE IS IN HOSPITAL AND CAN NOT USE A TABLET OR SMARTPHONE AS HE WILL SMASH IT. VERY DISAPPOINTED TO SEE THIS
Hey Michelle, sorry to hear about your son – I’ll be reviewing some of these sets soon, and hopefully, there’ll be paper instructions as well.
I can’t believe Lego would engage in a conspiracy to antagonize you and your son like this. I also didn’t realize they were pulling every other product they make, and are the only toy company in the world. Extremely disappointing.
“The downside is that you’ll need a tablet or smartphone to build these sets, and get the full experience.”
Any indication if instructions or the story will be available for download on Lego’s site as a PDF or something? Forcing potential buyers to use an app is a big no. I can imagine some buyers getting stung on this if they purchase a set and assume it’ll come with printed instructions.
Instructions aside, they do look like interesting little sets for their price.
Definitely not a fan of downloading an app to build Legos. My family will not be buying an of these sets. The whole point of Legos is to do an activity that doesn’t involve a screen, computer, tablet or phone in my household. Major fail on Legos end.
….which will then transport your child…
As a grown adult Lego fan I slighty resent not being included in this sentence. However having a digital set of instructions means no longer have to worry about ripped/missing instructions, or hard to see images. This also means we might have slightly better prices on future sets, and not as much paper is being used. I persoanlly see this as an all around win.
You resent a toy targeted at children?
Absolutely amazing stuff. As a kid who grew up with both the toys and the story based magazines, comics, and video games, I’ve always wanted to see the two separate mediums combined in some way. Merging the story incentives of the digital world with the joy of building in the physical world is an incredibly elegant solution between the two, and it would be amazing if this could be expanded to even more themes as time goes on as optional app experiences, maybe even merging sets like the old lego magazines used to do.
There’s always the argument to be made against smartphone apps to begin with, but I would take this format and apply it to basic physical instructions, as well. Skip the technology requirements and give the lego city lineup the flavor it deserves for an original Lego IP.
Not a fan of this at all. I’m a lover of all things physical. Not everyone has access to tablets or internet or phones.
Then you have my sister who likes to keep her kids off electronic devices.
It’s just another babysitting app I guess and personally, I wouldn’t want to be giving a kid a tablet to play with Lego. The point of Lego in our house growing up, even now, is to distract from the real world and technology.
Then you have to think of the camping trips when it rains, sorry kids, you can’t take your Lego.
Hopefully this stays limited for those that feel the need to have it.
Side note, how about instead of pushing the interaction with a tablet aspect, they push the interaction with an adult or parent or friend aspect.
Not a fan.
I have mixed feelings on the new LEGO Missions Sets that require use of an app, the internet, and tablet or other electronic device.
It’s a great concept for certain people and can help a person use an app and internet and following verbal instructions and to boost imagination with the story telling features..
But many of us parents are having our children play with LEGO to get them away from the electricity, especially as we near summer and the power grid shut downs throughout California and to get them off the electronics to use their own imagination and if the parent or other kids play together, they are learning social skills.
I would like to see LEGO give the option for these sets to purchase them with the normal paper instructions and a printed paper storybook in the sets to represent at least hints to the missions offered in the app and the app and internet info should they choose to purchase upgrades.
Jacqueline MONKEY
As the parent of a 5.5 year old who is Lego obsessed, I’m very very excited about this! It almost feels like an introduction like Lego Dimensions, but geared toward a younger audience and with missions, which I know my son will love. This also fosters building creativity, which is something we’ve tried to do at home, but without some clear “goals”, hasn’t been as fruitful yet. Excited to see these and try them out!