LEGO Donkey Kong Arcade (72051) Revealed at SDCC - 1,367 Pieces, On Sale 1 August for £149.99 / $199.99 / €169.99
LEGO revealed 72051 Donkey Kong Arcade at San Diego Comic-Con on 22 July 2026. The 1,367-piece, 18+ set goes on sale at LEGO.com on 1 August 2026, priced at £149.99 / $199.99 / €169.99. It pays homage to Shigeru Miyamoto's original 1981 arcade game, developed under Nintendo legend Gunpei Yokoi.
The cabinet stands 39 cm tall and 27 cm wide. Designer Carl Merriam - the man behind the LEGO Nintendo Game Boy and the Piranha Plant set - has recreated Jumpman (the character Nintendo later renamed Mario), Donkey Kong, and Lady, along with the scaffold, ladders, hammer, and girders of the original game layout. Miyamoto himself reportedly approves of the result.
The interactive mechanism is the real draw. A joystick moves Jumpman left and right across the scaffold; press a button and he leaps. Pull the lever and a barrel drops, rolling down the tracks for Jumpman to clear. The barrels use the same LEGO element first introduced in the 1989 pirate sets - a pleasing bit of parts history baked into the design. Merriam reportedly rolled thousands of them during development to settle on a speed that feels fun without constant jamming; two sliding doors at the back let you clear any that do get stuck.
72051 sits squarely in the adult-nostalgia corner of LEGO's portfolio, designed to live on a desk or shelf in a home office or games room rather than be played through alongside the main Super Mario range's younger-skewing, app-connected sets. The obvious companions are 10323 PAC-MAN Arcade, which landed to a strong reception in 2023, and 11374 Arcade Pinball Machine.
At roughly 14.6 cents per piece in the US, the price sits on the premium side for a licensed set. The confirmed use of stickers rather than printed parts is a step back - previous 18+ Nintendo sets leaned on printed elements throughout, and curved stickers on a curved cabinet are no fun. That said, the working barrel mechanism does justify some of the cost over a static build, and the PAC-MAN set commanded a similar premium and sold well. LEGO clearly knows its audience.
72051 Donkey Kong Arcade goes on sale at LEGO.com on 1 August 2026, with build instructions available via the LEGO Builder app.