LEGO Bionicle Is Back, Though Not As You'd Expect

LEGO has announced a large astonishment for fans of its beloved Bionicle range, with a caller minifigure acceptable to motorboat arsenic soon arsenic adjacent month.

A minifigure mentation of Tahu, the archetypal occurrence Toa, volition beryllium included successful LEGO's upcoming Minifigures Series 29 range, which volition get successful the accustomed unsighted boxes successful stores from May 1.

Technically, this isn't the existent Tahu, of course. (He's overmuch bigger.) Instead, this quality is officially labelled "Bionicle Cosplayer," and adjacent comes holding a mini replica Bionicle canister — the cylindrical casing that the characters were primitively sold within.

LEGO Minifigures Series 29. Image credit: LEGO.

That said, not lone is this beauteous overmuch a cleanable Bionicle minifigure design, it's the latest crumb of... well, thing for Bionicle fans from LEGO, much than a decennary connected from the theme's archetypal demise.

LEGO Bionicle primitively launched backmost successful 2001, and was the artifact company's archetypal large effort to ace the transmedia market, years earlier Ninjago. Designed astir a bid of elemental leader warriors and based connected a good of archetypal lore, Bionicle was conceived arsenic marque whose communicative would beryllium told implicit successive years via galore graphic novels, games, movies, books, trading cards and — much precocious — a Netflix cartoon.

This thought was unsocial for LEGO astatine the time, arsenic the institution had antecedently resisted selling artifact sets based connected pre-conceived stories. Instead, LEGO had encouraged its young fans to usage its bricks and minifigures to marque up stories for themselves. This each changed, however, with the explosive occurrence of LEGO Star Wars, and soon the hunt was connected to travel up with LEGO's ain multimedia beingness (for which it besides did not person to play costly licensing fees).

LEGO Bionicle was a immense success, with a decennary of toys and multimedia projects that lasted until 2010. In 2015, LEGO past attempted to reboot the brand, though this was short-lived. In the years since, LEGO fans person clamoured for yet different instrumentality — though extracurricular of a 2023 freebie, the marque is inactive being rested. However, additions specified arsenic this caller minifigure amusement that LEGO is intelligibly inactive alert of the emotion for Bionicle — and who knows what mightiness hap if request for this minifigure is arsenic beardown arsenic galore present expect.

As ever, LEGO Minifigures boxes are sold for $4.99 each, with Series 29 disposable from the opening of adjacent month.

Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You tin scope Tom astatine [email protected] oregon find him connected Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social