After having looked through the officially released materials, we are definitely missing a couple of sets from the LEGO Atlantis theme. I’m not talking about the sets where we’ve seen box art already and just need a name and release date, I’m talking about sets we haven’t heard of. Keep in mind that the three sets we reviewed, the 8056, 8058, and 8060, made it into a fairly wide-scale release here in the US through Toys R Us in a short amount of time around a month and a half earlier than expected with few, if any leaks and no official notice. Jason heard from a Toys R Us employee that it was official and was some kind of exclusive/promo release. Even without having an employee tell us that, it was clearly not an accidental stocking of shelves across the US. LEGO can keep things secret – those are just recent examples.
First, let me say that I’m ignoring rumors and wishful thinking and only focusing on published, official Atlantis-related materials and how the other in-house/non-licensed sets are being handled. In an earlier post, I mentioned a LEGO-related ARG (Alternate Reality Game). As ILikePi pointed out, it’s probably related to LEGO Universe, the upcoming MMORPG or MMO or whatever you want to call it. That was a bad lead on my part and I apologize. It should have been obvious that it wasn’t Atlantis related. That’s an example of what I want to stay away from.
I mainly want to figure out where they’ll fit in and how many large/premium sets we’ll have. For the sake of discussion, I’m calling anything that’s around $60 (or 500+ pieces) and on up “premium”. Before anybody says “you can’t expect a large/premium set of out Atlantis just yet, give it a year” or “you can’t put Atlantis on the level of Pirates or Castle just yet”, let me point out at that the very name of the theme is a location – Atlantis. There is a theme running through out the manuals that there are locations to visit and explore. The teaser website is all about exploring areas – the Doctor’s journal is about finding Atlantis. All we’ve got so far that we know of as far as actual locations is one set: 8061 – Gateway of the Squid, and it’s really not a premium set in my view. It’s also called “Gateway”. That alone sets off warning bells that it will be a gateway to something bigger.
A lot of this may have been collected elsewhere and even better explained, and if so, by all means leave a comment with a link. I’m putting this down for myself to see what the clues are when everything “official” is laid out.