LEGO Pirates is back yet again in 10320 Eldorado Fortress, a retro redux of a 1989 classic – but will X mark the spot, or is this a LEGO set that deserves to walk the plank?
Gather round, mateys, for a tale as old as time. Or at least as old as 34 years, when the LEGO Group set sail across the seven seas for its first original theme beyond Castle, Town and Space, embracing the swashbuckling stories of the golden age of piracy. And alongside the pirate ships, rafts and island castaways came blue-jacketed Imperial soldiers, complete with their own strongholds to defend.
The first of these was 6276 Eldorado Fortress, a 506-piece model that has since become one of the most iconic LEGO Pirates sets of all time – despite containing just two pirates and a couple of rowboats. The LEGO Group has already revisited maybe its most famous pirate ship of all time in 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay, and 10320 Eldorado Fortress now seeks to give the bluecoats a base worthy of rivalling Redbeard and the gang.
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Theme: LEGO Icons Set name: 10320 Eldorado Fortress Release date: July 4, 2023
Price: £189.99 / $214.99 / €214.99 Pieces: 2,509 Minifigures: 8
LEGO:
--- Where to buy LEGO Icons 10320 Eldorado Fortress ---
LEGO Icons 10320 Eldorado Fortress is exclusive to LEGO.com and LEGO Stores in most regions. To maximise returns, buy during a double Insiders points event or gift-with-purchase promotion.
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If you’ve spent enough time hanging around the LEGO community – either online or in-person – you’ll probably have picked up on the movement to modernise classic models. What would your childhood LEGO look like if it was released today? How about if it was a set designed without limitations, for adults to wax nostalgic about and get worryingly misty-eyed over?
That’s seemingly the brief that has fuelled the development of 10320 Eldorado Fortress, a retro remake that retains the core DNA of 1989’s 6276 Eldorado Fortress while channelling it through 34 years of improved design, element choice and aesthetics. In some ways, it’s hard to tell at first glance this is a totally different set – but there is one immediate means by which the differences make themselves obvious.
The LEGO Group hasn’t produced a three-dimensional baseplate in years, and has almost moved away from standard baseplates too (save for the Modular Buildings Collection, the NINJAGO City buildings and oddities like 21335 Motorised Lighthouse). But that iconic raised base played a huge role in giving 6276 Eldorado Fortress its heft back in the late ‘80s, so the design team needed to come up with a solution here. And that solution is… lots and lots of grey pieces.
The stacking of slopes in light and dark grey mirrors techniques you’d traditionally see in custom builds, and what you learn from putting 10320 Eldorado Fortress together is exactly why you don’t see this approach more often in official sets. It’s repetitive, laborious and really not that interesting (the colour palette doesn’t help) – suddenly we’re relieved 71043 Hogwarts Castle relies on elements widely dismissed as ‘big ugly rock pieces’ (or BURPs, if you know your LEGO lingo).
The benefit of building that foundation entirely in bricks, of course, is that you’re not hampered by the restrictions of a huge moulded baseplate – and the designers have taken full advantage, squeezing a rum cellar, trapdoor chute, lost skeleton and plenty more into the base. There’s also something to be said for the texture created by all those pieces, crafting a more realistic and visually interesting version of Eldorado.
Which is all to say: you might not enjoy putting a lot of this set together, but the rewards are more than worth it. And it really speaks to that 18+ tag on the box, because this is not a set that a younger builder is necessarily going to have the patience to finish.
That doesn’t mean this is completely removed from the set you remember putting together nearly 35 years ago, though. All the hallmarks of Eldorado as you remember it are here, more so than any other recent retro set: put it side by side with the original model, and it basically looks like a high-definition upgrade. It’s akin to a video game remake (more so than a remaster), putting that 1989 set through the lens of the 2023 parts palette, design language and adult-friendly approach.
The same is true for the glistening walls of the fortress itself, which again swap out larger, more juniorised elements for fiddly, part-intensive assemblies of tiny pieces. The techniques here are closer to what some of us hoped to see in
Yet while 10320 Eldorado Fortress sticks much closer to its inspiration in size and scope than, say, 10497 Galaxy Explorer, it also knows where to turn the screw slightly to make things just that little bit better: the colour blocking is more attractive, for instance, toning down the vivid yellow in favour of white (although you might say to an overzealous degree, depending on your attachment to the original set), while the extra palm trees add vibrancy and better sell the tropical setting.
Including the galleon from 6277 Imperial Trading Post was also a smart choice – you’d expect a Pirates set to come with some sort of boat (especially when it’s the only one on shelves, 31109 Pirate Ship notwithstanding), and it’s a fun little thing to put together without overshadowing the fortress itself. It’s actually the first thing you build (going chronologically through the set’s four instruction manuals), but you might want to leave it for the halfway point to break up the rinse-and-repeat nature of the fortress’s modular sections.
That modularity, by the way, feels peak LEGO in 2023 – the company must be gearing up to liberate ‘have it your way’ from Burger King as its new slogan pretty soon – but works really nicely. You can’t quite unfold 10320 Eldorado Fortress as easily as
The LEGO Group appears to be increasingly conscious that not all of us have the same space to display its bigger products, so offering a choice between a compact but deep build or something wider and shallower shouldn’t go unnoticed – even if you only ever intend to display it in the one format, it’s surely going to find a wider audience by dint of having both.
And find a wider audience this should, because while it’s first and foremost for LEGO fans who grew up with the original set in 1989, it’s also just a great LEGO Pirates model in its own right. It doesn’t boast quite the same imagination or inventive techniques as 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay – its most recent contemporary – but it’s still flush with details that immerse you in its 17th-century world (cutlasses; muskets; treasure chests; a parrot, crab and monkey; and so on), and to that end cements its status as one of the greats among the great LEGO retro renaissance of the 2020s.
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Just like 6276 Eldorado Fortress, 10320 Eldorado Fortress includes eight minifigures, comprised of six bluecoat soldiers and two pirates.
The Imperials are all fully modernised for the 21st century (from a LEGO design perspective – these are still era-appropriate 17th-century outfits), and there’s really nothing here to fault. The fun dual-moulded tricorner-hair piece gets put to use in two different colour combos, while the updated governor with gold epaulettes is present and correct.
There’s no Captain Redbeard this time around for the pirates, though: instead, Lady Anchor returns from 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay, with another generic scallywag in tow. Given 40504 A Minifigure Tribute is currently on shelves (or a shelf in the LEGO House), it’s surprising that the good captain didn’t return here too – but perhaps the LEGO Group is gearing up to release another LEGO Pirates set sometime soon? (We live in hope.)
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10320 Eldorado Fortress comes in just a little above what we all paid for 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay three years ago, and has a similar piece count. But the volume of the finished product is staggeringly different, thanks mainly to the fact that so many of its 2,509 elements are so small.
The galleon gives the entire package some heft, but the value for money here doesn’t quite live up to even recent sets like
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--- LEGO Icons 10320 Eldorado Fortress pros and cons ---
People keep asking if LEGO Pirates is back, and we haven’t really had an answer. But yeah, we’re thinking LEGO Pirates is back. 10320 Eldorado Fortress isn’t quite to the Imperials what 21322 Pirates of Barracuda Bay was to the buccaneers (this is a direct remake rather than a glorious reimagining), but there are many different paths to hidden treasure – even if this one is a little bit repetitive, and a little bit straightforward – and X certainly marks the spot here.
You may need your own chest of gold to bring it home from the LEGO Store, but whether you earn it legitimately or plunder it from a nearby fortress (note: Brick Fanatics does not condone grand larceny), it’s definitely one you’ll be admiring long after you’ve popped the final leaves on its retro palm trees.
Yo ho ho, it’s a LEGO pirate’s life for us.
| 10320 Eldorado Fortress pros | 10320 Eldorado Fortress cons |
|---|---|
| Nostalgic value is through the roof | Not the most interesting building experience |
| Packed with all the pirate motifs you remember | Slightly too expensive for its size |
| Modularity opens up display options |
This set was provided for review by the LEGO Group.
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--- Alternatives to LEGO Icons 10320 Eldorado Fortress ---
If you’re searching for a similarly retro LEGO experience, look to 10497 Galaxy Explorer (cheaper) or
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