LEGO Animal Crossing's minifigures are bucking the trend for licensed LEGO themes

LEGO Animal Crossing's steady stream of sets feature a pleasantly diverse range of characters, breaking free from the trappings of other licensed LEGO themes.

LEGO Animal Crossing is only two waves in, with a third on the way in 2025, but is already building up potential as a diverse theme that can stand the test of time. Where other themes tend to retread the same ground and, inevitably, minifigures, Animal Crossing isn’t suffering from the same problem – and probably won’t need to anytime soon.

Long-running themes can suffer the same minifigure problem

Whenever a theme starts to release consistent sets, especially if it’s a theme centred around a franchise or a recurring cast of characters, it begins to develop a consistent problem. If you collect LEGO Harry Potter, for example, you’re sure to get a never-ending stream of minifigures of the boy wizard.

Sure, they might have different outfits on and even follow Harry from childhood into his teen years and even into early adulthood. However, there are only so many times that messy black hair and a lightning scar can appear on a shelf before it starts to look same-y.

The same can be said for Mateo in LEGO DREAMZzz (a much younger theme), or Lloyd in LEGO NINJAGO. It takes a franchise with decades' worth of content to somewhat avoid the problem, like LEGO Star Wars. Sets can focus on any one of the movie trilogies or the TV shows, offering a greater range of diversity in minifigures.

Animal Crossing has a wealth of villagers – and LEGO is making the most of it

Thankfully, one theme that doesn’t seem to be coming up against this problem is LEGO Animal Crossing. We’re two waves in, with a third revealed for January 2025, and there has been a grand total of one repeat minifigure.

That’s partly down to the fact that Animal Crossing has almost 500 villagers to meet across the digital island – but also partly due to the fact that the characters are often closely tied to the specific locations. K.K. Slider picks specific spots for his performances in each Animal Crossing, and Tom Nook sticks close to Nook’s Cranny.

That means LEGO sets based on those locations naturally feature those characters – but they’re not found elsewhere. Tom Nook is arguably the face of Animal Crossing, in the same way that Harry Potter is the main character of his titular franchise, but he doesn’t appear in every set, in keeping with the canon of the game.

Instead, the only repeat minifigure we’ve had so far is Isabelle, appearing in 77052 K.K.'s Concert at the Plaza and 77049 Isabelle's House Visit, which makes sense as her in-game character is known to move around the island. Despite appearing twice, she does have an outfit change between the two sets to keep things interesting.

LEGO Animal Crossing minifigures hit the mark

Of course, it helps that the LEGO Animal Crossing minifigures are delightfully well-designed. Humanoid animals in colour-clashing outfits could be pure nightmare fuel but the minifigures largely come out just as cutesy as they do in the games. They stick close to the original inspiration, even when that results in a fairly plain minifigure, as with K.K., as one example.

However, it's also resulted in some fun new prints, like Wilbur's special pilot uniform, or fresh accessories like Audie the wolf's fetching sunglasses, both of which are pictured above. The fact that each one brings something unique to the table means that it's not just diversity in terms of different characters and animals coming in each new LEGO Animal Crossing set, but also new elements, accessories, and prints that will appeal even to people who aren't interested in Animal Crossing.

A theme that can just keep going

Looking ahead, the foundations that have been set by LEGO Animal Crossing are incredibly promising, even as a fledgling theme. If you want to collect them all, you’re not going to get too many duplicates, making for a more holistic display.

It’s exactly how the LEGO designers seem to want you to build up a collection and mix them together in the same way you gradually explore the digital island in the Animal Crossing games. Whether you have one set or all seven released so far, the minifigures can mix and match between builds.

The size and prices also keep the sets accessible to build up over time, with even the most expensive of them all only costing £69.99 / $79.99 / €79.99 – a price that LEGO Star Wars fans, for example, rarely seem to see.

The range of minifigures and wealth of locations that are possible to depict in these compact, well-priced sets is paving the way for a very promising LEGO theme. Despite only launching this year, the vibrant houses and unique characters are well worth dipping into, even if you’re not an Animal Crossing fan – and the relatively low cost of the sets means it’s a low-stakes experiment.

LEGO Animal Crossing sets

The LEGO Animal Crossing sets featured in this story were provided for review by the LEGO Group.

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