Rock Raiders Wave Two?

[emily]

I was strolling through a Eurobricks thread on unreleased sets and came to this curious post.

 

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I also know that LEGO had plans for expanding the Rock Raiders theme-- initially it was categorized as "Underground", rather than just "Rock Raiders", and they had a few things planned for a "wave 2" with other underground creatures.  I've never seen any pictures, though.

 

So I thought to myself "yeah, okay, big talk. Did you read that on Brickipedia?" But then they went on to say this:

 

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My wife worked at LEGO Futura a long while back, and basically said that LEGO has gobs of unreleased stuff that they keep on hand for designers to refer to.  She said that often, people would come up with ideas that they thought were new only to be told "Yeah, we tested something like that a few years ago".  And sure enough, they've still got the concept art, pictures of sketch models, and so forth.  But obviously a lot of this never makes its way out the door to the hobbyist community.

 

Suddenly the post is sounding a lot more credible. So I look back up at the post and what really strikes me is that he says that wave 2 would have had "other underground creatures." And then I remembered this guy!

 

 

It's a slimy slug that was on the cover of a catalog packaged with big box LEGO games in 1999. It's not a model from the Rock Raiders game, though - in fact, it looks like it's design to be produced as a buildable figure, with a single-piece rigid body that has some eyestalks and studs stuck on. Seems a little excessive to design all of that just for promotional renders, no?

 

So yeah, I think this guy may have been designed for that 2nd wave. What else could have been in it? There are at least a couple models in the PC game that would have worked as sets if they had chosen to produce them...

 

[Oboe Shoes]

I can't remember if it's ever been disclosed if the building/vehicles in-game were scrapped developmental sets, or just designed for the game itself, but most of them are pretty viable builds. I made a Small Mobile Laser Cutter. myself.

 

And while most, if not all of the in-game stuff can be built with existing parts, and probably would have made fine standalone sets, it is interesting to wonder what a second wave or Rock Raiders would have brought in terms of new elements. Most obvious being the Slimy Slug, as you mentioned. It's a pretty big part of the PC game, but nowhere to be found in the physical stuff. Would have also been interesting to see if we'd have ever gotten Ice or Lava Monsters, even if they were just recolored Rock Monster bigfigs or something.

 

Oh, and something that would have been interesting to see, though maybe not that easy to pull off... None of the Rock Raider sets, outside of the RRHQ baseplate and the ore pieces, actually reflect the fact that the theme takes place underground in a mining environment, there's really no environmental sets, just equipment. Might have been tricky to make look right, but I think a medium sized set based around some kind of simplistic rock formation built into a baseplate would have been doable, in a similar fashion to other 90's era outdoor sets. Could have a bit where you pull out a pin or lift up a brick to "blast" away a wall, revealing the Energy Crystals inside or something, tons of sets from that era loved that gimmick.

[Ben24x7]

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...other underground creatures...

 

I wonder if there was a planned set involving Bats. They aren't a key feature to the game, but they are there.

[BobaFett2]

Given the level of complexity of sets back then (excessive juniorization), I find it unlikely that they would have had too much environmental stuff. If they did have one that showed off the underground nature of the theme it would probably just have utilized BURPs/LURPs, a rock with crystal inside, and a few pieces to help make the BURP/LURP feel more like part of the scene.

 

My guess is that wave 2 wouldn't be entirely, or even largely, models from the game. They probably would have expanded the theme a bit and given how other the other multi-year action/adventure theme from that time, Adventurers developed, probably changed scenery. They didn't really keep any themes in the same place from year to year - stuff like Space, Aquazone, Time Cruisers, Castle, and so forth (with slightly earlier/later releases) always saw significant shifts between years. The only real exceptions are Star Wars (sets came from all episodes to start with) and BIONICLE (2001-2002 didn't have any real palette shift).

 

This would probably mean some degree of palette shift (see above).

 

All just speculation, of course, but it would fit the patterns I've noticed from the 90's through the early 00's.