Bionicle 2015 Picture from Nuremberg

[Hapori Tohu]

The German website Ukonio has recently posted their coverage of Nuremberg Toy Fair. While their article doesn't specifically call out Bionicle, if you look through their image gallery you'll find this gem, the first official image of the summer Bionicle 2015 sets. It's not very large and as such it's hard to make out some of the details, but people are already speculating about it and commenting on the forums, so go join them!

 

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[Ragnar Lothbrok]

I'm disappointed in what looks to be Skull Scorpion. I cannot really see the others but the club-like weapons look okay.

[Dark_Stranger]

I'm generally not a fan of the "ooh, bare limbs, it's UNDEAD!"aesthetic, but these guys seem to pull it off nicely; it meshes really well with the new torso armor. The new gold masks seem to match the color scheme of the villain each is packaged with, which suggests that they've tampered with them somehow. The only real disappointment is that Tahu and Gali don't seem to be getting them.

[Ragnar Lothbrok]

I'm generally not a fan of the "ooh, bare limbs, it's UNDEAD!"aesthetic, but these guys seem to pull it off nicely; it meshes really well with the new torso armor. The new gold masks seem to match the color scheme of the villain each is packaged with, which suggests that they've tampered with them somehow. The only real disappointment is that Tahu and Gali don't seem to be getting them.

 

Yeah, I just noticed that. Onua's is very cool.

 

Perhaps it's story-related that Tahu and Gali aren't getting any?

[RahiSpeak]

At first, I was not a fan of the four-armed skull warrior, but I just noticed that all four of his arms move when the back gear is rotated. Two-arm function is ordinary, but can you imagine a four-arm function while holding an axe an a chain? Awesome! Also, it appears that the scorpion skull warrior has a function for its tail. When you press inward on the black pieces inbetween the blades they clamp together like a claw. I noticed it because I bought Turaga Dume and Nivawk a long time ago and those two slim bar elements looked familiar. Couldn't say what the others do (I know that Ekimu has the traditional gear function but that's not too special).

 

I still haven't bought any of the 2015 sets yet, but all of this is going to make the decision-making process that much harder! Thank goodness they have a golden-purple Mask of Earth because I know I want Onua and the Protector of Earth.

Edited January 28, 2015 by RahiSpeak

[Wazdakka]

I thought we weren't supposed to be allowed to get pictures of the new sets from Nuremberg. 

[Click]

Those new weapon pieces look fabulous... I can't wait to build with them!

 

The new limbs (molds and colors) look great as well. I really like that trans-apple green. I just wish we had better shots of those new armor elements.

 

I really need to get those masks though. I can already picture a pre-mutation Vamprah looking great with one of the new skull masks, and the blending of the gold masks with trans-colors of the elements is an awesome idea! Plus, Mask of Creation!

 

Looks to be a promising wave. I can't wait to see them on shelves!

[Zidonaro]

Look like bad made mocs to me. And that scorpion thing is horrorendous.

 

But who cares, we can finally have the mask of creation.

[The Meta Knight]

Look at the little Ekimu; He's SO CUTE!!

 

Who else was expecting Ekimu to wear the protector mask and come with the Mask of Creation in a similar fashion to how the Toa wear their default masks and come with their golden masks?

 

The friggin' scorpion looks AWESOME! The rest do too, of course. But mostly the scorpion. Really can't wait for these sets!

[Tarvaxx]

Look like bad made mocs to me. And that scorpion thing is horrorendous.

But who cares, we can finally have the mask of creation.

I think they look really good.

 

Also, those masks seem to be this generations infected Kanohi.

[J46 Nui]

I wonder if the missing "infected" masks will be released somehow. Maybe a Shop@Home promotion?

 

Ekimu is shorter than I expected. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it is different. I like the use of the Disney Princess/Ninjago decorated window as a shield piece. I don't really see Makuta being as short.

 

I love all of the translucent colored pieces in the new sets, though the do not fit the usual elemental coloring of Bionicle sets, and the big guy seems to share a color scheme with Lord of Skull Spiders, which is a bit disappointing.

 

Are some of those limb pieces missing ball joints? Does that mean we are getting CCBS pieces that are compatible with Gen 1 style Bionicle armor?

[Owlexander]

I'm going to be getting them all just for the masks. XD

[Toa Smoke Monster]

Like I've said before, I'm very excited for these sets. I really like the trans-colored masks and the sets themselves don't look that bad either. I do wish that Ekimu wasn't Protector sized and at least Toa sized, but his set makes up for it with having the Mask of Creation come with the set.

[Disciple]

Just last night, I posted in this topic about how I wanted a trans-purple Onua mask. And now we have one!

 

Add my vote for some two-tone Tahu and Gali masks. These four are awesome, but a complete set would be...

 

Bad guy sets look a bit wonky, but I'll withhold final judgement until we get better pictures.

 

Also, it's nice that we get Ekimu during the first year, instead of having to wait nearly a decade...

 

I'm looking at you, Mata Nui.

Edited January 28, 2015 by Disciple

[Vorahk1Panrahk2]

I thought we weren't supposed to be allowed to get pictures of the new sets from Nuremberg. 

 

Pictures weren't allowed at the London Toy Fair. They were allowed at Nuremberg.

 

But while it's great that we have a photograph, I'm not even going to try to pull out any detail from it. I don't care enough to strain my eyes at something we'll just get better images of later.

[RahiSpeak]

Look at the little Ekimu; He's SO CUTE!!

 

Who else was expecting Ekimu to wear the protector mask and come with the Mask of Creation in a similar fashion to how the Toa wear their default masks and come with their golden masks?

Actually, if you look at the animations you can see that Ekimu was entombed by the Protectors who put a Protector mask on him. Later on it says that the Mask of Creation is hidden somewhere on the island.

 

To be honest, I thought Ekimu would be bigger too, but in that above mentioned clip you can see that he is Protector-sized. The real question is what the implications are, if any.

[Toa Doublebee]

Ohh this is pretty exciting! 

​Definitely getting the short gold guy. (I admit I don't care much for the G2 story) 

[Nidhiki of the Shadows]

Interesting. Liking the colours, and Ekimu looks awesome. Plus, he comes with both the Mask of Creation and his Protector Mask! Enemies I will need better pics of.

 

Pretty exciting! 

 

-NotS

[Lenny7092]

Wow! I love seeing these new summer sets! They look very cool! I love the new pieces! They look epic!

The scorpion looks a bit cool, although his tail is a bit oversized.

The guy with Ouna's trans-purple-gold mask looks epic, and I love his axe pieces.

The guy with four arms looks pretty cool, and I like his swords and whip. Plus, he kind of reminds me of Gorast from 2008.

The guy with the Gatling-gun-crossbow thing looks pretty epic, and I like his weapon.

Ekimu looks so cute! That is because of his size being the same as a Protector. I like his Protector mask, hammer, shield, and gold pieces because they look very cool. Plus, I am excitedly looking forward for the Mask of Creation. The big bad guy behind him looks very menacing. I like his giant, claw-like weapon because it looks epic!

Overall, the bone pieces look very nice for the bad guys' skeletal body structures, even thought that they could need protective armor pieces. Although the Toa's new transparent-colored masks, there is something missing: where are Tahu's and Gali's masks? However, I love how the summer sets look, after all. Plus, I will be going to get them when they come out this summer.

Edited January 28, 2015 by Lenny7092

[TheSpecial]

Here's my theory on these sets:

 

The toa enter the ancient city, but skull grinder climbs out of the ground and starts attacking. Kopaka, Lewa, Pohatu and Onua stay to fight, while Tahu and Gali rush to ekimu's grave to awaken him. When they return with Ekimu, all that is left of the toa are four, glowing masks, and skull grinder now has an army. He has found the mask of creation deep within the jungles of okoto, and used it to create new forms for the other toa. Tahu and gali must defeat each villain, and return their mask to regain an ally, while Ekimu goes to face skull grinder at the mask forge. One by one, the toa are returned to normal, and the skull army is weakened. The toa then come to Ekimu's aid, and together defeat the skull grinder and return the mask of creation to its owner.

[Arzaki]

Those blended Toa masks.

 

I want them.

[Ballom Nom Nom]

While a lot of things look cool about the new sets, I'm not a big fan of the unarmored CCBS bones. The shells are the bread and butter of the system, so I think these guys could definitely use more of them. Oh well.

 

Ekimu looks great, though. I'm also surprised the Mask of Creation is appearing his early.

 

~B~

[Rooster Nui]

I'm very curious as to how a gear function was shoved into Ekimu. Oh, and I really like the new masks, especially those of the new Toa masks.

 

I'm getting them all, even if they are a bit skinny for my taste.

[Arzaki]

Tahu's lower leg armor is on wrong. Heh.

[Shadow Destroyer]

I dislike the color schemes on some of them at the moment, but I'll wait till we get better pictures before I make a conclusive opinion on these.

Edited January 28, 2015 by Shadow Destroyer

[Mimaka]

Ekimu's small size but thick build make me wonder how posable he is. It's certainly a pleasant surprise to see him this early in the story though.

On that note, I feel like the story is moving very quickly. I haven't yet seen the sets in stores, and I've already seen the last episode. What are they going to do for the rest of the 80 years Bionicle is around?

Back to the sets, though, I just noticed the black villain with the really cool giant battle axes has two purple horns coming off his head. They all appear to have some kind of spiny mid-section piece, but this guy is more armored. Overall, he looks the best.

It is slightly disappointing to see repeats of weapons already, with the crossbow and re-use of the axes on two villains. The scorpion guy looks fragile, or possibly hard to move, much like I thought of Lord of the Skull Spiders. But I turned out to be wrong in my exact expectations there, so we'll see. 

It also appears that the new pieces actually do not allow for any armor attachments at all. In the end, however, I do look forward to these sets, or at least a better view of them for now. Then I can decide how much to complain about them. But until then... It's Bionicle!

[The Meta Knight]

Tahu's lower leg armor is on wrong. Heh.

 I noticed that! Is so weird, ja? Makes ya wonder if they built any of the new sets incorrectly... 

 

sie sind Dummcopfe, ja?

 

[dotcom]

I'm very curious as to how a gear function was shoved into Ekimu.

it's not that difficult. I put a gearbox on my PoJ a while ago to test it out, and it can definitely work with a protector body. It'll just have a build similar to the PoF.

[Magnet Toa]

I'm glad we are getting some new bad guys, but I wish we got a team of six to even out with the Masters (not really counting Skull Spider)

[Trijhak]

It kinds of look they have preliminary pieces - some of their bones are missing the ball joint, which is unusual. Unless they seriously decided to make a new mold for a bone piece without a boll joint in the middle, which IMO is a serious waste of a new mold because you can achieve the same effect by simply not putting the armour shells on, so I doubt these weird bone pieces will be in the final sets.

 

The scorpion guy looks pretty terrible too. It has less leg articulation than the Nui-Jaga. Remember that this is fourteen years later and with CCBS, which should be capable of such a simple feat as providing leg articulation.

 

Ekimu looks pretty great, but I imagine some people will hate that he's nothing more than a glorified Protector. The big guy's arms are way too short though compared to his torso and legs.

 

The guy with four arms has no armour other than the torso armour, and it looks really weird...

 

Axe-guy has purple, so BZP'll love it when it comes out.

 

The bow guy seems to be missing some pieces on the legs.

 

They all seem to have this horribly spindly new torso armour - worse, they're all translucent in colour, it seems. This means you can see the bones, and with CCBS that's not a good thing...

 

What's with the half-translucent Toa masks anyway? That doesn't make any sense. Probably just placeholders, because as it is right now there's no translucent-gold mask for Tahu and Gali. Totally placeholder, we'll probably get something different

[Rooster Nui]

 

I'm very curious as to how a gear function was shoved into Ekimu.

it's not that difficult. I put a gearbox on my PoJ a while ago to test it out, and it can definitely work with a protector body. It'll just have a build similar to the PoF.

 

Yeah, I guess that works. I can see how he would have a build similar to the Protector of Fire, I mean his body is pretty wide, which I like. 

 

However, I'm also curious if both arms move with the gear function. It's hard to tell from the only picture shown at the moment, but I guess we'll get a closer look and be able to find out soon.

 

EDIT: He has a shield, so it's likely that his right arm will only swing.

Edited January 28, 2015 by Rooster Nui

[Munty]

....What's with the half-translucent Toa masks anyway? That doesn't make any sense. Probably just placeholders, because as it is right now there's no translucent-gold mask for Tahu and Gali. Totally placeholder, we'll probably get something different

 

Pretty sure they don't send sets out to toy fairs with placeholder parts. And I'm even more certain TLG wouldn't go to all the extra effort of molding two-colour masks as placeholders! I'm not a huge fan of some of these new sets but for the most part I think they look pretty good. Interesting at least and we get the MoC + Ekimu too so it's definitely exciting. But yeah, none of what you're looking at will be changed, you have months to get used to it though

[Torran]

Can't say I like the bare bones of the villians, but I'll reserve final judgment until better pictures come out. I'm excited to see this one surface though, means more on the way soon, hopefully!

[Nescent]

I like the bare-bones look. It's a style I've seen before in video games (like Diablo 3, and Dark Souls I think), and I think they did a good job making them look like skeletons without making them look weak. The exception is the four-armed Slicer, who has absolutely no leg armor. He DOES have shells on his upper-arms, but they're hard to see in the photo.

 

Anyways, my favorite set is Basher. He looks like a horrifying monster straight out of Diablo II. Warrior is a close second.

[MIY]

Not a fan of the "Zombie" theme we're getting. It reminds me of the gimmicky themes that Hero Factory would always use. I hope that we'll eventually get the complex story that made Bionicle so interesting. I'm not worried yet because it's only the first year, and the first year of Bionicle was pretty simplistic (although it has way more lore), I'm sure they'll figure something out.

[dotcom]

Not a fan of the "Zombie" theme we're getting. It reminds me of the gimmicky themes that Hero Factory would always use.

It's not like HF was the first to do special themes for its stories. Remember 2007 and 2008? There's nothing here (or in HF for that matter) that was any more gimmicky than those, really.

[MIY]

 

Not a fan of the "Zombie" theme we're getting. It reminds me of the gimmicky themes that Hero Factory would always use.

It's not like HF was the first to do special themes for its stories. Remember 2007 and 2008? There's nothing here (or in HF for that matter) that was any more gimmicky than those, really.

 

I guess you're right, although 2007 and 2008 gave good reason as to why those gimmicks were used and were much more complex then just "Oh no generic zombies." I just feel like zombies are such a generic enemy, at least the underwater and air themes were sort of unique at the time.

[dotcom]

 

 

Not a fan of the "Zombie" theme we're getting. It reminds me of the gimmicky themes that Hero Factory would always use.

It's not like HF was the first to do special themes for its stories. Remember 2007 and 2008? There's nothing here (or in HF for that matter) that was any more gimmicky than those, really.

 

I guess you're right, although 2007 and 2008 gave good reason as to why those gimmicks were used and were much more complex then just "Oh no generic zombies." I just feel like zombies are such a generic enemy, at least the underwater and air themes were sort of unique at the time.

 

..The reason for why 2007 was underwater was that the Ignika just up and flew away without any real explanation at the time. And there wasn't any real reason behind the flying theme, honestly.

 

Anyway, I agree to some extent that zombies are kind of a generic enemy, but these sets aren't honestly that zombie-ish. There's a difference between being a skeleton and a zombie, and really these have varied enough designs that I wouldn't really refer to them as generic in any case. 

[Nescent]

They really don't look generic to me at all...They somewhat resemble skeletons, and don't look like zombies. The actual appearance of the villains is distinctive enough in my opinion, even if undead bad guys has been done before. We can't judge the originality of the summer story since it hasn't started yet.

[MIY]

 

 

 

Not a fan of the "Zombie" theme we're getting. It reminds me of the gimmicky themes that Hero Factory would always use.

It's not like HF was the first to do special themes for its stories. Remember 2007 and 2008? There's nothing here (or in HF for that matter) that was any more gimmicky than those, really.

 

I guess you're right, although 2007 and 2008 gave good reason as to why those gimmicks were used and were much more complex then just "Oh no generic zombies." I just feel like zombies are such a generic enemy, at least the underwater and air themes were sort of unique at the time.

 

..The reason for why 2007 was underwater was that the Ignika just up and flew away without any real explanation at the time. And there wasn't any real reason behind the flying theme, honestly.

 

Anyway, I agree to some extent that zombies are kind of a generic enemy, but these sets aren't honestly that zombie-ish. There's a difference between being a skeleton and a zombie, and really these have varied enough designs that I wouldn't really refer to them as generic in any case. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not writing them off or anything like that. I still enjoy Bionicle and I'm willing to give this new wave a shot, but I just don't want to see Bionicle fall down the same path as Hero Factory were it just jumped from wave after wave of generic enemies. I want to see sets like the Piraka or the Rahkshi again. There's still a lot of time for that and I'm willing to wait, I just don't want every wave of enemies to be like this one.