From the moment a pixelated Gengar and Nidorino faced off in the opening animation of the first Pokémon games on the original Game Boy back in 1996, the Pokémon franchise has been a perennial favorite of kids and adults alike. With 2026 marking Pokémon’s 30th anniversary, Lego’s first-ever collaboration with the enduringly popular monster-catching megahit is perfectly timed—a crossover of pop culture titans with just one problem: Anyone who isn’t an ultra-fan with cavernously deep pockets isn’t invited.
The recent announcement of a line of Lego Pokémon wasn’t a surprise—the Danish brick brand first revealed it had entered into a “multi-year partnership” with The Pokémon Company back in March 2025—but the makeup of the range itself was. Despite the mass appeal, Lego is launching with just three sets, and every single one is age-rated 18+. In short, it’s exclusively aimed at and priced for the “Adult Fan of Lego” (AFOL) market.
The most affordable set is Eevee, a 587-piece model for $60. Franchise mascot Pikachu takes up the mid-tier, price-wise, with the 2,050-piece Pikachu with Pokéball set, at an MSRP of $200. Lastly, the signature statement piece is a colossal three-in-one set of Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise—the final evolutions of the first game’s starter Pokémon—which clocks in at a massive 6,838 pieces for $650.
Beyond the steep prices, all three sets target nostalgic adults by drawing exclusively from the first-generation Pokémon games, and are designed for presentation over play—the assembled models result in display pieces with minimal articulation or posability. It all begs the question—are kids still welcome when it comes to Lego?
No Kids Allowed?
Lego being expensive or targeting adult collectors is nothing new—2025’s $1,000 Star Wars Death Star hit a lofty new price threshold, while the $400 USS Enterprise-D from Star Trek: The Next Generation—a 38-year-old show—now looks a bargain compared to Venusaur, Charizard, and Blastoise. Nor is it unusual for Lego’s collector sets to be shown off once built, rather than played with—look, but don’t touch.
However, Lego’s other collaborations with cross-generational charm typically offer something for everyone. The Super Mario range makes for a pertinent comparison here, based on another Nintendo property, with plenty of kid-friendly Mario Kart racers and larger playsets to contrast the collector-grade Mario and Kart or the replica Lego Game Boy. Yet Lego Pokémon has nothing at all for younger builders at launch, nor, at the time of writing, anything announced to reach that audience. Given Pokémon has such broad appeal across age ranges, Lego’s decision to exclusively chase the lucrative collector’s market is all the more striking—and some experts think it risks undermining the brand’s standing as being for everyone.
“Pokémon and Lego have multi-generational fanbases, yet there’s no explicit narrative about multigenerational play, which runs counter to Lego’s ethos,” says Katriina Heljakka, a senior researcher of toy and play cultures at the University of Turku in Finland. “The new sets emphasize novelty, collectability, and fandom, which aligns with AFOL preferences, but provide little substantive commentary on how people actually play together.”
Playing together is something Lego has been pushing for a while, with a selection of sets that are designed to be built collaboratively using the Lego Builder app’s “Build Together” feature. The family-targeted mode splits instructions into smaller parts, so multiple people can build their own sections, then combine for the final build. Yet of the announced Pokémon sets, it’s only the smallest, Eevee, that—per the announcement—“presents fans with the ability to build together with friends and family.” Another departure from Lego’s universal appeal.
The result, says Heljakka, is that “licensed collectibles risk being perceived as display pieces for solitary play rather than as tools for shared play,” adding that the upcoming sets are “closed-object products that behave more like 3D jigsaw puzzles than platforms for co-play by building together.”
Priced Out
Further cementing the Lego Pokémon range as being for adults only is a pair of collectibles that money literally can’t buy. A 233-piece Mini Pokémon Center is only available through the Lego Insiders Club membership scheme, redeemable for 2,500 points accrued through other purchases made on Lego’s website or in its stores, while the Kanto Region Badge Collection, a 312-piece “Gift With Purchase” set recreating the eight gym badges players earned in Pokémon Red/Blue, was only available to those who preordered the priciest trio evolutions set directly from Lego.
The scarcity of that badge set in particular has worked in Lego’s favor—a desirable set produced in limited quantities, tied exclusively to the most expensive set in the line, propelled the $650 evolutions trio to sell out almost immediately in most territories. Professional Lego YouTuber Bamidele “JANGBRiCKS” calculated that it made Lego $30 million in just 24 hours.
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