LEGO Minecraft Steve's Desert Expedtion 21251 Review

Today we will be taking a closer look at the LEGO Minecraft set Steve’s Desert Expedition set number 21251. This set came out in 2024, has 75 pieces, and was designed for people 6 and up.

LEGO’s story for this set has Steve building a house in a hostile environment and then defending it against attacks from a flying Phantom. The story written by LEGO might not tell us a lot, but like most LEGO creations we are only limited by our imagination. The name of the set lets us know that the specific hostile environment is a desert. The house is more of a glorified tent, so this was not meant to be a permanent home for Steve. Since it takes 3 sleepless nights to attract a Phantom, I believe this is a hunting camp so Steve can collect some Phantom Membranes to repair his elytra or brew a slow falling potion. A baby camel has come by to inspect the area. Luckily he is not an adult or our hunter Steve might be tempted in trying to get an experience orb too. Okay, my story is a little darker than LEGO’s.

LEGO introduced a new Steve minifigure for this set. The dark purple pants have been around forever. Actually, 1978 but that feels like forever. It is the first time we have seen this torso piece. While a long sleeve, dark azure shirt is common for Steve minifigures, the pixelated nougat neck pattern and nougat hands were new. Originally LEGO used light nougat for his skin tone. The head is the obvious new piece. Like the torso, Steve was finally given a nougat skin tone to better match his video game complexion. It’s the opened, bucked tooth mouth and dark azure around his eyes that make it stand out as new. I applaud LEGO for attempting to bring some emotions and different facial expressions to their Minecraft characters. However, I hate this head. The big tooth, opened mouth expression MIGHT be him letting out a blood curdling scream or battle cry. To me, it makes him look like a chipmunk. I can only take wild guesses at what the dark azure around the eyes is supposed to be. Tears? Sweat? War paint? Maybe a mask? Is he a Ninja Turtle? I DON’T KNOW! I do know he is equipped with a medium lavender Minecraft Axe. The fact that he is wielding an enchanted axe reinforces my belief that he is out hunting and not crafting. As of now, this medium lavender axe only comes in 4 sets.

The camel officially came to the Minecraft game in 2023, and it only took 1 year for LEGO to create its first baby camel for this set. The 1X1 tan tile piece printed to look like the camel’s nose and the elongated neck with the eyes and ears is used for both the baby and adult camel. It’s the body and legs that separate these builds. The adult was made large enough to be ridden by minifigure, just like you can in the game. Our baby camel has a much smaller body. Its legs are made from two 1X2 tan bricks with a channel to give the illusion of 4 legs. The body itself is only 2X3 studs big and uses plates, jumper plates and a tile to make it 4 plates high. While most of these pieces are tan, one dark tan 2X2 jumper plate was added to give that Minecraft pixelated appearance. I’m sure this could have been a standard 2X2 plate, but because 4 of these jumper plates would be used on the desert setting LEGO just added one more for the camel. LEGO put two 1X2 jumper plates near the front of the body, to make the studs centered on top. They connected a 1X2 plate and 1X2 tile to these studs to create the hump associated with camels. The overall build does an excellent job recreating a MInecraft Camel

Phantoms have been in Minecraft since 2017 and LEGO since 2021 for The Sky Tower set. The Phantom build has not changed much over the years. The biggest update is that instead of using a 2X3 plate for the base of the body, two 1X3 inverted tiles with a hole were used. This allows the Phantom to be put onto the end of a translucent clear 4H antenna piece and look like it’s flying in the air. So the antenna does not have to be attached to a stud, a 3X3 translucent clear inverted radar dish is attached to the bottom. This opens up a lot of possibilities for where your Phantom will be swooping down from. The only other update was a color change to the 1X2-1X2 bracket. It was switched from a dark blue to black. While changing the color to black does offer a better illusion of pixel color variation, I like the original dark blue better for video game accuracy. Everything else is exactly the same. Even the 1X2 dark blue tile printed with bright green and lime squares to look like the Phantom’s has not changed. 1X2 plates with side bar handles let the 2X3 dark blue tile with 2 open O clips move up and down as if the wings are flapping. A 1X2 plate with tow ball and small tow ball socket on ends runs down the center. This allows the tail to be attached to the back with a 1X2 plate with tow ball socket on the end and the head with a 1x2 plate with tow ball on the side. The build is then smoothed out with dark blue tile pieces. These ball socket connections open up a lot of movement and poses for people to play around with.

Steve’s desert camp site is on a tan 6X8 and 4X8 plate. I like this uneven base for the rough desert terrain. These two plates are held together with a bunch of jumper plates. Here you will see the jumper plate used for our baby camel. Before building this set, I thought this housing for Steve was going to be a desert market tent. It uses a simple technique of stacking white bricks and plates onto 1X1 reddish brown bricks. I always like getting the 1X1X3 bricks they used in front. I like the height they offer builds. Finding the perfect camping spot is all about location location location. Here Steve has found a small water source created by a translucent dark blue 45 2X2 slope. Oddly, the plant by the water is dead but the cactus near the back of his tent is alive and well. I hope the water isn’t poisoned. The cactus highlights how one piece can make an awesome build. Green and Dark green plates were put on both sides of a 2X2-1X2 centered brack piece. The rectangular plant that stands 4 studs high replicates a Minecraft cactus beautifully. The only part of this campsite I don’t like is the fire. I like having the two different types of translucent orange flame pieces to simulate the movement of fire. But, putting them on the white 1X2 round plate gives more of a melted candle vibe than wood burning campfire. Changing it to any shade of brown would have fixed this issue. The crafting table assembled using the printed 1X2 bricks with a printed 2X2 tile on top is a standard build in these Minecraft sets. It’s always a welcome inclusion in these smaller sets. I don’t know why these crafting boxes are put on a black round plate. It seems out of place for the square Minecraft world.

This is a great set. It originally retailed at 10.99. At that price you got a new Steve minifigure, two mobs and a decent sized build. I personally did not like the minifigure but the new baby camel does a great job creating the juvenile animal from the game. The Phantom looks awesome and offers so much movement that it works great as a child’s toy, a set piece to a larger MOC or a character in a stop motion video. The build was okay, but gave us some fun pieces and a nice sampling of the builds you can expect in the LEGO Minecraft world. This is a good starter set for people interested in the Minecraft Theme but not ready to spend the money needed for larger sets.