Review: LEGO 10320 Eldorado Fortress (2023)

June 20, 2023 | 22

LEGO continues to mine their set archives for gold, and their latest vintage treasure they have unearthed out of the vault is 10320 Eldorado Fortress, a superb and ultra-faithful remake of 6276 Eldorado Fortress from 1989.

The 2023 Eldorado Fortress flies under the LEGO Icons banner, and follows in the footsteps of 2022’s amazing 10305 Lion Knight’s Castle and 10497 Galaxy Explorer (and 40567 Forest Hideout), where LEGO have reimagined Classic themes and sets for the modern age.

10320 Eldorado Fortress will retail for US$214.99 / AU$329.99, and will be available from 4 July 2023 onwards for LEGO VIPs from LEGO.com or your local LEGO store.

Who is this set for? Older LEGO fans who want to relive a legendary Pirates set, and newer fans wanting to indulge in Classic Pirates goodness augmented by modern build techniques, and aesthetics.

Special thanks to LEGO for sending this set over for this review.

10320 Eldorado Fortress Set Details

Set number: 10320
Set name: Eldorado Fortress
Pieces: 2,509
Retail Price:  US$214.99 / AU$329.99 / £189.99 / €214.99 / CAD$299.99
Theme: LEGO Icons / Vault
Release Date: 4 July 2023 (VIP Early Access)

This set is an especially meaningful set for me, as I share the same birth year and grew up yearning for LEGO Pirates sets, but this was always just a bit too expensive for my family as a child, but somehow, the original always stood out to me.

After getting back into LEGO, and falling down the Vintage rabbit hole, 6276 Eldorado Fortress was one of the earliest sets I made a point of hunting down, and I consider it my favourite LEGO Pirates set of all time.

Many older LEGO fans who are now in their 30s and 40s will no doubt recognise Eldorado Fortress, or may have been lucky enough to have been given one for a birthday or Christmas as a kid.

One thing that LEGO have done remarkably well with the 2023 Eldorado Fortress is the packaging design, which comes pretty close to capturing the classic vibe of the original.

Released in 1989, this was a legendary Pirates set, and the flagship Imperial Fort set, and featured iconic features like the raised baseplate, and iconic white and yellow colour scheme.

This is one of my most dear vintage sets, and I am the proud owner of several copies, as the set means so much to me and in my mind, is in my Top 5 Vintage sets of all time, so LEGO remaking and refreshing Eldorado Fortress for 2023 is highly relevant to me.

Here’s a look at the instruction manuals, and yes, LEGO knows their audience here – there are zero stickers in the set. Unfortunately, the manuals are just plain ugly and boring, with the set render set against these plain white backgrounds.

The designs are super disappointing, especially when you compare them against the 10305 Lion Knight’s Castle and 10497 Galaxy Explorer manuals, which were gorgeous and had so much personality.

These just look so sterile and uninviting, and it’s such a shame that more design efforts weren’t put into the manuals to make them something that collectors could appreciate.

There are 4 booklets included, which means that it’s technically a “Build Together” set and you can share the build with up to 3 other people, owing to its modular design.

Thankfully, the insides of the manual have great graphic designs, and features an introduction to the set, comparison to the original, and a short profile of set designer Pierre Normandin.

LEGO 10320 Eldorado Fortress Minifigures

Like the 1989 original, 10320 Eldorado Fortress comes with 8 minifigures – 6 Imperials, and 2 Pirates. The one major change here is the lack of legendary Captain Red Beard, which has been replaced by a swashbuckling female Pirate, but otherwise the minifigure lineup is faithful to the original.

Pirate fans will be absolutely delighted at the return of the Imperial faction into LEGO’s official inventory, with modernised torso prints, and I can’t wait till they appear on Pick a Brick online, so I can easily amass my army of Imperial Soldiers.

As someone who grew up with LEGO Pirates, it’s so uncanny how familiar these feel – everything looks and feels just like it should, from the cutlasses, to the flintlock muskets, to the hats, and epaulets.

Here’s a look at the back printing for the Imperial Admiral/Governor, and his 2 female Officers.

The Officers come with these Tricorn hats with ponytails fused to them, which I really like.

Here’s a look at the Imperial Admiral and how he compares with the 1989 Governor who’s charged with the defence of Eldorado Fortress.

Note: I have the wrong face on the original Eldorado Fortress governor… I couldn’t find the correct one, unfortunately!

And here’s a comparison with the the Imperial Officer, and his modern female counterpart.

It’s great to see LEGO get so many of the details right, and I was especially impressed by how close they got him to look to his 1989 predecessor.

Here’s a comparison of the new Imperial Soldiers, which have more expressive faces and their 1989 counterparts – while LEGO Pirates was the first theme to introduce more detailed faces, the soldiers still retained the classic LEGO minifigure smiley faces.

The minifigures are stellar, and if you grew up with LEGO Pirates, you’ll feel that these are just done so well. Even the Imperial shako hats seem near-identical!

LEGO 10320 Eldorado Fortress Build Experience

Here’s a look at the build process. One of the key differences between this set and the 1989 original is the lack of raised baseplate (RIP) in LEGO’s modern arsenal, but to keep it faithful to the original, you are treated to a brick-built baseplate that serves as the rocky foundation of Eldorado Fortress.

The build is everything that you can expect from a modern LEGO set, with detailed and meticulous architectural details and greebling to give the set’s more texture, but at the same time, there’s a lot of traditional LEGO building styles here, where you mostly stack bricks on top of one another.

It’s such a fun build, especially if you’re more of a traditional LEGO builder, and I really enjoyed the modular nature and building these different components and seeing them all come together.

I was particularly impressed by the construction of the slope leading up to Eldorado Fortress. To mimic the decoration on the raised baseplate, Pierre Normandin cleverly uses cobblestone techniques as an homage, which is purely brilliant.

It was at this stage, super early on in the build that I knew that this was going to be an extremely faithful love letter to Eldorado Fortress.

The original set came with 2 rowboats, but Pierre decided to do something special and include a larger ship for the Imperial Side.

Eagle-eyed LEGO Pirates fans will immediately recognise this ship as the vessel from another legendary (and rare!) Pirates set, 6277 Imperial Trading Post!

The sails come packed in this paper envelope, with the clear do not cut warning symbol, and it gave me warm fuzzy feelings to see printed fabric sails in 2023.

The ship has a sleek hull, which utilise these large curved slopes, typically used for LEGO Icons-scale vehicles, but they work to give it a modernised look.

Here’s a comparison with the ship from 6277 Imperial Trading Post, and I’m happy to report that while the new version is slightly bigger, it too is so incredibly faithful to the designs, proportions, colours and even angles of the original, including the arched bow.

Here’s a closeup of the flags, to show how LEGO’s graphic design team have updated the Imperial crest.

Here’s the completed 10320 Eldorado Fortress model, and it’s simply stunning, and a masterclass in a modern remake of a LEGO Classic.

With this set, it’s clear that LEGO were going for a faithful remake, as opposed to a bolder reimagination of 6276 Eldorado Fortress.

In many ways, it’s more akin to  10497 Galaxy Explorer than 10305 Lion Knight’s Castle, where the latter had a more ambitious, no expense-spared reimagination of what the ultimate Classic Castle would look like in modern times – 10320 Eldorado Fortress has clearly recognised the legendary status of the original, and wisely decided to remain extremely faithful. After all, how can you improve on perfection?

If you are familiar with the original, it’s incredibly surreal to recognise so many familiar angles, and build techniques employed here. The proportions all seem familiar, such as the wide entryway arch leading up from the slope, as well as these yellow pillars that go directly into the sea below.

There are cannons aplenty, in all the right places, and just like the original, they swivel and are still utilise springs to launch 1×1 round cannonballs at unsuspecting Pirates who dare challenge Imperial might on the seven seas.

Here’s a look at the Admiral’s tower, which also has these muskets angled downwards. Now there are 2 muskets instead of the solo one!

One of the things 10320 Eldorado Fortress improves upon its predecessor is that it has more furnishing and stuff, instead of feeling like a skeletal barebones fort, and the Admiral’s office, which has a Pirate map, quill and candle are one such example.

Oh and in an improvement to the original, an additional cannon is available for the rear of Eldorado Fortress, finally giving the fort full 360 degree protection against Pirates. This was a really smart addition, and hey, I’m not complaining at being given another cannon!

At the back is a small beach, with 2 coconut trees, an additional tree was added, which balances out the build quite nicely, and there’s even a small monkey included.

It’s a shame that LEGO didn’t bring back the original 4-handed monkey, but beggars can’t be choosers.

Everywhere you look are familiar features. In lieu of the printed corner pieces are these brickbuilt walls, which also retain the white and red bricked colour scheme, and arched windows.

The crane has also undergone a huge upgrade and is now capable of lifting more booty.

The interiors also feel more fleshed out, with a kitchen, and dining table for the Imperial Soldiers to feast. Scattered throughout the Fortress are plenty of barrels, sacks of spice (or gold) and stacked cannonballs, as well as plenty of weapons.

More play features and storytelling opportunities are also added to the set, such as this jail cell, which has a sneaky hatch buried under straw that allows pirates to escape via the caves below.

Modularising 10320 Eldorado Fortress

One key bit of innovation to reimagine Eldorado Fortress is its modular nature, and you can break apart different bits of the fort, as such.

Through a series of clips and handles, you can then transform its look and turn it from its square footprint to a longer fortification layout, which is really cool and adds so much to the set.

I really like this play feature and it also allows you to expand the fortress by buying more sets, or inviting you to build your own fortifications to build a mega-sized fortress.

Here’s some closeups in modular mode.

But that’s not all! Bring free from the raised baseplate also opens up plenty of real estate beneath the fort, and there’s a whole system of caverns used by Pirates to stash their treasure and various things beneath Eldorado Fortress. They must be taking lessons from the Forestmen!

A curious frog hides beneath the Fortress, next to leaky casks of rum. Or tomato sauce to keep it child-friendly.

There are also plenty of treasure chests, and sacks. In lieu of chrome gold coins gold bars are used instead.

There’s even a poor Pirate skeleton lodged in one of the caves.

I really like the subterranean cavern system beneath Eldorado Fortress, and for those that lament the loss of the raised baseplate, this I think is a huge improvement as it opens up so much more storytelling and lore opportunities to what would’ve been air and empty space.

Comparing 10320 Eldorado Fortress to the 1989 original

I’ll be doing a proper comparison between 6276 Eldorado Fortress and the 2023 version, but here’s a look at them side by side to whet your appetites.

All in all, I think LEGO have done a remarkable job capturing the likeness of the original, but modernising it with advanced build techniques and more quality of life improvements.

It feels incredibly faithful to the original, although once placed side by side, you can see that the newer version is dominated by more white elements, as opposed to the yellow that made the original such an Icon.

I do wish that more yellow elements were included, but it definitely feels like the Imperials have been busy painting the fortress over in the 34 years since it first debut.

What I liked:

• Extremely faithful to the spirit of the original
• Updated Imperial minifigures galore
• Addition of the ship from 6277 Imperial Trading Post
• Caverns beneath provide plenty of storytelling potential
• Modular nature allows you to switch up its look if bored of the original

What I didn’t like: 

• Manuals are really ugly
• Might be a bit too faithful to the original

Final Thoughts

I consider 6276 Eldorado Fortress absolute perfection and a high point in LEGO design from the late 80s and 90s, so this set means a huge deal to me.

I have to commend LEGO for the bold choice of intentionally taking on such a beloved classic, and choosing to go down the route of keeping it to a faithful remake, with the advantage of modern build techniques and parts selection, and using that criteria, LEGO have done a remarkable and praiseworthy job.

It just feels so much like the older Eldorado Fortress, achieved through almost the same minifigure lineup, this time augmented with modern prints and faces and accessories, yet keeping what made the Pirates theme minifigure so recognisable and special.

The angles, proportions and colours are mostly there, and having own the original, the set does fall into uncanny valley, especially with how much it felt like LEGO was truly indulging my nostalgia.v

If you grew up on LEGO Pirates, this is a sensational way to relive your youth or childhood, especially if you never owned the original, but always wanted one – 10320 Eldorado Fortress is an inspired and faithful take on the original.

It’s careful, almost to the point of reverence to the original, a calculation that LEGO must’ve made knowing how iconic and legendary 6276 is to so many of its adult fans.

Innovations such as the modular nature, brick-built raised baseplate and cave systems keep things fresh, and give it an extra bit of playability and storytelling, as if the latter was lacking in the original, but it’s well appreciated.

After building 10320 Eldorado Fortress and basking in its comforting nostalgic warmth, I did however have a question at the back of my head, about “what if” LEGO decided to go down the Lion’s Knight Castle route, and instead of trying to remake an icon, take all the creative prowess and element selection of Billund, and give us an ambitious no-expense-spared take on LEGO Pirates.

Ultimately, LEGO have nostalgic indulgence as its main goal with 10320 Eldorado Fortress, and it succeeds on so many levels here. If you want to relive your LEGO Pirates childhood, 10320 Eldorado Fortress will not disappoint, and is a masterclass in paying homage to an icon.

Build [4] – So much fun with the set, using modern techniques to bring Eldorado Fortress to life.
Real Value [4] – I appreciate that it’s priced far below 10305 and is somewhat accessible for most adult fans in their 30s and 40s.
Innovation [4] – Modular nature and cavern system are great ways to improve on the original
Coolness [5] – This is my favourite LEGO set ever, remade for 2023. And yes I would love more Pirates sets like this.
Keepability [5] – Like the original, this is going to stay on display forever.

Rating and score: 4/5 ★★★★✰

Thanks for reading this review of 10320 Eldorado Fortress! The set will be available from LEGO.com or your local LEGO store from 4 July 2023 onwards via LEGO VIP early access.

What do you think of the 2023 version of Eldorado Fortress? Does it stack up against the original, and will you be picking this up to relive your LEGO Pirates childhood?

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