LEGO NINJAGO Old Town is actually a villain set

LEGO NINJAGO's biggest 2026 anniversary model is actually our latest villain playset, as the new season of the show has revealed.

Before LEGO NINJAGO 71861 The Old Town was launched earlier this year, the set's designer Lee Chi Wing shared some insight into the background of this location, which was chosen for the massive anniversary model rather than something more iconic from the series. We'll be discussing spoilers from LEGO NINJAGO: Dragons Rising Season 4 later in this report.

"This location is actually going to be in Dragons Rising Season 4," stated Lee to Bricks By Mind. "It's going to be a canonical location. The way it happened is actually that the model came first, and then the writers were looking at our product line-up, and they came up with a brilliant way of writing it in. Because of that. You will see bits and pieces of the model in the show, but it's not going to look the same.

"In the show, when you see it, it's going to be in modern-day, where there are other skyscrapers built around it already, " Lee continues. "In my head, this model is more depicting the olden times, but I guess when you look across the minifigure line-up and the references, it's more like it exists in a vacuum of time. But in the show, it's going to be that one square in town that is still preserved, but the rest of the town is already built into the modern-day NINJAGO City."

The fourth season of LEGO NINJAGO: Dragons Rising is now streaming worldwide, revealing exactly what Lee meant in the interview. It turns out that the location which has inspired 71861 The Old Town is a district of NINJAGO City, just next to Borg Tower. It also serves as the hideout for the Loyalists in the new season.

The architecture of 71861 The Old Town is visible across a couple of scenes in the new episodes, such as overhanging buildings, hanging signs and that sand green entrance, which serves as a gate in the animated series.

This explains why there's a hideout for the two Loyalist minifigures in 71861 The Old Town, much more hidden than any other interior in the set. It turns out that this section of the 2026 model even hinted at the return of Beatrix, and you can even see LaRow's tablet from which she discovers the Weapon of Desolation.

It's another excuse for you to pick up 71861 The Old Town after it was launched earlier this year, and it slots the huge NINJAGO set into a limited collection of models dating back to the first year of the theme. 71861 The Old Town is our latest LEGO NINJAGO villain playset.

It's by far the biggest of these builds, as well, although not everything in 71861 The Old Town serves the Loyalist's nefarious goals. We don't see too much of the location based on 71861 The Old Town in the new season, but it might give you a reason to display it next to the NINJAGO City range.

You can take a closer look at the contents of 71861 The Old Town in our thorough review. The 4,851 model is available now for £269.99 / $299.99 / €299.99, and will score you 40907 Restaurants of the World: Mexico until April 19.

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