Written by: Jamie Hejna | Updated: March 2023
Minecraft is the most successful video game of all time.
Ever since its release in 2011, the world has been obsessed with the block-based building and exploration that has all the freedom, creativity and imaginative power that kids and adults could ask for.
Every block of every kind can be put together, or used to make new items that can in turn be crafted into new unique blocks all with the aim of building fantastic things.
Minecraft has been called the LEGO of video games, with infinite replayability and reusability.
So naturally, making LEGO sets out of Minecraft is just bringing that experience into real life.
LEGO and Minecraft have been in collaboration since 2012, after the game came out and just started its meteoric rise to popularity.
Like any popular property, Minecraft got its own tie-ins with LEGO in the form of many different sets. The first sets came in the form of Micro Worlds, small platforms that linked together, four individual modular sets based on the terrain and environments found in-game. Then they moved onto formal sets, with scenes and buildings which required instructional building guides.
More complex sets emerged, including minecraft-themed minifigs that combine the super-blocky aesthetic of the game with the naturally joinable function of LEGO.
Creations straight out of the minds of great Minecrafters have taken shape in LEGO sets over the years. The very first set even came out on Minecraft creator Notch’s birthday. The sell was a bit hard at first. Back then, when negotiations began around 2011, LEGO even toyed with the idea of acquiring Minecraft outright, but they were “still growing” and “hadn’t yet proved they would become a cultural phenomenon.”
Well, they did. And now Minecraft and LEGO are nearly considered synonyms for free form creativity in the digital and physical space.
Naturally there have been quite a few sets over nearly ten years worth of collaboration.
Close to 80 LEGO Minecraft products have been released. Some small and collectible, and others are much larger sets and challenging builds, all based off of the things that are in the game which players can discover, find, or creatively construct on their own. If someone has to choose between building in Minecraft or building with LEGOs, they don’t – they can do both with these fun and interesting LEGO Minecraft sets:
Starting with a slightly newer set, the Ruined Portal constructs a few of the most crucial sights and scenes from the Minecraft late-game for seasoned players. These Ruined Portals can be found, in game, as random pieces of terrain that have a mostly constructed Nether Portal – allowing the player to slip into the next realm of the game.
The LEGO Minecraft The Ruined Portal set comes with some wildlife and other blocks, from one side of the world and the next, including red magma blocks, some incredible minifigures you’re likely to encounter on the other side, and one colorful sheep.
A stable is a staple for anyone who wants a friendly horse to stay safe. The LEGO Minecraft Horse Stable 21171 comes with everything you need to make a fine and functional stable for your trusty steed. Not only that, if you’re thinking of getting the stable built before any horses show up, you’ll be pleased to know it comes with a horse as a minifig in both the chestnut mare and skeletal variety.
You can also upgrade your horse with snap-on Diamond horse armor. That will leave you with even more diamonds for your own crafting purposes. Keep your horse safe, in its stable and out!
Pigs are acclaimed as the unofficial mascots of Minecraft. They’ve been in the game since the alpha stages. It’s a food source for the new players and a companion for the experienced.
What’s a better way to honor this veteran character than by building a house that can best accommodate it? No, this isn’t a pig stable. It’s a house, for you, shaped like a pig. The LEGO Minecraft Pig House 21170 set has an interior and a hinge which opens up and allows you to get a feel for what it’s like to live inside of a pig – complete with a water-fountain secret entrance coming from the mouth. Truly classic design!
One of the first tests of Minecraft veterancy is to build something incredibly high up without anything connecting to it.
Floating sky buildings are one of those common projects to show off how well you understand the mechanics and basics of Minecraft. Now, you can’t do that in real life. There’s something called gravity we have to adhere to. But these mini-set style buildings can give you that same free-building experience of a house, a tower and a floating waterfalling island. The LEGO Minecraft Sky Tower 21173 set comes with a minifig and phantoms – flying enemies that you’re likely to find in the night sky.
Exploring the world of Minecraft, players will sometimes encounter a village. These villages are populated by Villagers, NPCs who are native to the world of Minecraft and have built their own houses out of the natural elements. They serve as a good tutorial on many of the systems in Minecraft like growing food and all the unique little touches that can make a building into a proper home. Now you can build your own Village, complete with a large number of minifigs, including an Iron Golem, Villagers, zombies and a Creeper.
Minecraft has introduce many new biomes throughout the years, whole environments that can be randomly generated into the overworld and explored for rare materials and rarer encounters. One of these biomes, the jungle, introduced players to jungle moss, climbable vines, and the epic world encounter of the Jungle Abomination.
The LEGO Minecraft Jungle Abomination 21176 set allows players to build their own Abomination enemy and fight against Mossy Skeletons and Enchanted Creepers with their trusty Iron Golem. Add this monster to any set to stage an incredible combat!
There’s nothing worse than doing your thing, digging and mining and working your hardest, and then hearing the hiss of a Creeper from behind. The iconic enemy will creep right up on you, just like its namesake says, and blow up. But that can be used to your advantage.
Everyone is afraid of Creepers – so if you want to protect an important mine, you should make it look like a Creeper. A big, decorative mine entrance complete with a cliffside cave and a cart track to take all your precious ores and diamonds out, plus a collection of mining-ready minifigs. And of course, the LEGO Minecraft Creeper Mine 21155 set comes with a Creeper. You can’t escape them!
On the opposite end of the helpful, peaceful Villagers are the crossbow wielding, raiding, pillaging Illagers. These nasty warriors will raid a village in waves until everyone’s dead, or until you’ve stopped them! Comes with Illagers and their Ravager Beast, a rideable monster that shares their rotten look that an Illager can fire from while mounted.
The LEGO Minecraft Illager Raid set also comes with a village for them to attack, and a number of buildings with customizable interiors and exteriors. Also included is a surprise crossover from the LEGO Ninjago franchise. Kai the red ninja in extra-blocky Minecraft style comes to the rescue with a Diamond sword!
Bees were added into Minecraft and everyone was all abuzz. With Bees came honey, and honey became an all important tool for all the neat, unique builds. Beekeeping became part of the collective efforts for Minecraft pros who wanted to find every use for every block and needed a way to collect honey.
Now you can be one of the pros and tend to your own bees with the LEGO Minecraft Bee Farm 21165 set. One part garden, one part camp, the Bee Farm comes with plenty of bees, a hive, a stand, some trees for them to nest in and a bee-styled minifig to collect the honey in combs and chunks.
LEGO sets are at their best when you can build and customize to your heart’s desire. Just like in Minecraft, if you have the materials you can build in any way you want.
The LEGO Minecraft Modern Treehouse set comes with adjustable, modular rooms that you can stack wherever you want, all made out of and built around the foundation of a tree. This treehouse is the best build you can get in a Minecraft set. It has everything you want, all the creativity and imagination built up in any way you want. It’s the perfect combination of Minecraft and LEGO coming together!
The greatest difference between Minecraft and LEGO is the amount and number of individual resources available. In Minecraft, you’re only limited by what you can carry, but you can pick up and build with anything. No LEGO set comes with infinite blocks or infinite kinds. To get the feel of Minecraft just right, LEGO has released several CraftingBoxes.
These Minecraft boxes include multiple different builds that can be inserted into any collection, any scene, any other set and still fit with the same Minecraft aesthetic. They come with whole buildings like castles and town houses, as well as minifigs to add more life and variety to your Minecraft LEGO world.
The first answer a brand new, living-under-a-rock who has never heard of Minecraft before would say if you asked them what you do in the game is, obviously, you mine. It’s become so much more than that, but digging a hole and farming a network of caves and passages is still integral to the experience of the game overall. This Mountain Cave set lets you build up a whole mountain with functional minecart tracks that go up, over, through and around the whole thing. The LEGO Minecraft Mountain Cave 21137 set is by far one of the largest LEGO Minecraft sets as well. What’s more fun than building a mountain? Mining it down!
When you enter the Nether, the whole game changes. No more sleeping on beds, all water you spill evaporates, everything’s on fire and an ocean of lava covers the lowest level. Not only that, but the peaceful mobs and NPCs you’ve grown used to? Replaced with everything hostile you can think of, zombie pigmen and flying ghasts, and the cursed Wither Skeletons that drain your health. This mini-set is a block of terrain – mostly dangerous – with enemy minifigs and an iron-armor set for your minifig to brave the elements.
For those who want Adventure, Minecraft comes calling! But what if you want a slower, passive playstyle? Something with farming and friendship, where you don’t have to worry about fighting or running out of time. Minecraft is accommodating to any kind of playstyle, and to anyone who wants to play. The LEGO Minecraft Farm Cottage 21144 set is great for those people. It has separate spaces for growing carrots, wheat and beets – the staple foods of Minecraft – a stable for a horse, a pen for a pig, and a lakefront for some fishing. Ignore the skeleton archer minifig – he’s just here to relax, same as anyone!
Minecraft is the most popular video game in the world. But, what’s the story? Who are the characters? Most people can name the enemies and the mobs and the things in the game, but being a video game, it has to have a character. Even the oldest games have names for their characters. Who is the main character of Minecraft? Is it you? No, it’s Steve. Or Alex, depending on who you ask. These are the official names of the default skins in Minecraft, and these BigFig builds that come with a parrot and chicken can bring them to big, blocky life.
While exploring the Nether, players in Minecraft will be on the lookout for great structures that connect together to a central Fortress. These are the places to encounter the Blazes, fiery enemies that shoot fire. Blazes are made of floating, flaming rods that spin around dangerously, defying gravity. This LEGO Minecraft Blaze Bridge 21154 set comes with the dangerous bridge, a guardian Wither Skeleton, and a Blaze with adjustable, rotating body parts, along with the alchemic set which the Blaze Rods they drop is needed to construct.
The Pillagers hold out in outposts in the wilderness, where they gather supplies and train for the day when they launch their raids. They use training dummies with jack o’lantern heads and TNT to launch devastating attacks against defenses! The tower folds out to reveal the interior, and a switch on the side controls a TNT launcher. The LEGO Minecraft Pillager Outpost 21159 set comes with two Pillagers, an Iron Golem, and a brave knight-armored warrior with a tower shield and ax. And a sheep, because every adventurer needs someone to save.
This three-story LEGO Minecraft set tells a whole story in itself. It’s a set made to commemorate a lot of Minecraft history and lineage, from humble beginnings to deep diving explorations. Start at the top, the grassy ground and a legendarily rare Flower-growing cow. The diorama extends down into a mine with a big-horned sheep and minecart track. Then follow the flowing water down to the lowest level where the abandoned mine still stands, where mushrooms grow and cave creatures are all around. A perfect vertical slice of the Minecraft life, in LEGO form.
A combination of two things everyone loves: Minecraft and Ninjas. This is a scene that you’re not likely to find in Minecraft normally, but is one you can easily make. Two ninja-clad minifigs with an enchanted bow and iron sword occupy this training grounds. A Japanese-styled gate at the top includes a magenta roof and pink cherry blossom tree, made out of blocks to match the look in true Minecraft style. The bottom floor has a forge and anvil, and an armor rack that hosts a set of diamond armor.
A huge, sprawling construct great for barricading against attacks and manning stations. With fireplaces as torches on the roof of each tower and a high enough wall that it can’t just be jumped over, this is a great place to hide out against enemy attack. Which is exactly what this play set is for. Arm up with golden armor, put the Sheep in defensive mode, strap the leather armor on your horse and get ready for a Skeleton invasion! Arrange the Fortress in any number of ways, a vertical tower or a heavy stone mansion, or one long wall to protect the lands behind it. You have all the parts to make it the way you want – the Minecraft way!
There’s no place for a treehouse like a jungle, where there’s more trees than dirt to build on. Create a sprawling, natural treetop haven with a treasure chest full of weapons and tools. This comes with all the blocks you need to make the best treehouse you can. Comes with a waterfall for growing your crops up on the tops of trees and a rare Ocelot companion, native to the jungles of Minecraft everywhere. Defend your jungle home and grow it up into a living adventure!
The goal of any trip to the Nether isn’t complete without finding the Fortress. It’s a dangerous place, but you have to get there before you can face the end. This fortress can extend from the Blaze Bridge and comes with a store of treasure in a chest at the end, lava-falls to guard the entrance, and a Ghast – the flying ghostly enemies that shoot balls of fire from the sky. This one has real fire (brick) shooting mechanisms. Try your luck dodging fire on top of the bridge over troubled lava to get the treasure. And every Fortress is different. This one can be rearranged in any way. Get the loot and get back through the portal!
For deep water exploration you need more than a boat. You need a second home that can float on the water – a center of operations for all things exploratory. This huge ship comes with a deck capable of fitting two vehicles, one helicopter for the air and one crane for the land and cargo hold. If the battleship-like design is too played out, you can convert it into a wide platform barge, or a push boat with extra space. Set the stage for exploration anywhere in your LEGO world.
From the beginning, the LEGO Minecraft series started with small but important steps. These came in the form of the Micro Worlds.
Each set had four “blocks”, miniature sets in themselves that were modeled after the popular blocks in Minecraft and the things that could be found on and in them. The first one was the Forest, where just about everyone starts their Minecraft journey. Trees, hills and some hollow minies are the features on each block. Then the Village, which had buildings, fields and structures.
The Nether Micro World is lava and magman themed, red and black bricks with a Nether Portal and other dangerous features. Finally, the mysterious The End Micro World where the Endermen come from, with sand a plenty and tall black Ender Trees.
The beginning of The End: This is the most important place in any Minecraft world, the portal which leads you to the legendary End to face The Ender Dragon. This is an important setting and a very important set. Every detail of the portal, down to its construction and activation, is accurate. Navigate a spider-covered hallway and avoid the block-stealing Endermen once you arrive to jump through the portal and begin the final fight….
The beginning of The End: This is the most important place in any Minecraft world, the portal which leads you to the legendary End to face The Ender Dragon. This is an important setting and a very important set. Every detail of the portal, down to its construction and activation, is accurate. Navigate a spider-covered hallway and avoid the block-stealing Endermen once you arrive to jump through the portal and begin the final fight….
The 3D Japanese artwork makes an eye-catching display piece and is a great home or office decor
