LEGO Atari 2600 (10306)

Name: LEGO Atari 2600
Brand: LEGO
SKU: 10306

A near life-size wood-grain console with a secret 1980s bedroom hiding inside.

Brick Rated Score

4.3/5

Set 10306 · 2022

Pieces2,532

Minifigs1

Year2022

Set number10306

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The verdict

If you grew up with an Atari, or you just love retro gaming, this one is an easy yes for me.

It is a lovely near 1:1 replica of the classic wood-grain console with a working joystick and three swappable cartridges. Just know the actual building leans repetitive and the price always ran steep, so it lands more as a display piece for the nostalgic than a thrilling build for its own sake. For the right person, though, it hits square in the childhood.

Best for: Grown-up gamers who had (or wanted) an Atari 2600 as a kid

The full review

What it is

This is the LEGO set that makes retro gamers grin the second they spot the box, and I was no different. It is the Atari 2600, the wood-grain video computer system that basically kicked off home gaming, rebuilt in brick at close to 1:1 scale. LEGO put it out in 2022 to mark Atari's 50th anniversary, and designer Chris McVeigh, a lifelong Atari fan, clearly poured a lot of love into it. You get the six iconic silver switches, the fake wood paneling, the cartridge slot, and a proper brick-built joystick that actually moves like the original. Line it up next to a real 2600 and the size is uncanny.

The catch

The honest catch is that the build itself is not the most thrilling 2,500-piece project you will ever do. The real Atari was a flat, boxy slab, so recreating it faithfully means a lot of repetitive plate-laying and large tan panels before it starts looking like anything. Reviewers were pretty unanimous that the console section drags, and the fun mostly lives in the sub-assemblies: the switches, the joystick, and that little pop-up room. The other sticking point is price. At its original 209 pounds or 240 dollars it always felt a touch expensive for what it is, and now that it is retired you are paying aftermarket costs on top.

Who it's for

So who should grab it? If you owned an Atari, or you are a sucker for 80s nostalgia and want a conversation-starter on the shelf, this is a genuinely lovely thing to display. The reward here is the finished model and its secrets, not the journey to get there. If you are chasing a clever, technique-heavy build to sink into, or you are on a tight budget, you will probably find better value elsewhere in the Icons range. But for the right person, this one lands square in the childhood, and I get why the community rates it so highly.

The parts story

What the build is actually like, and the pieces worth knowing about.

Building this splits neatly into two moods. The console shell is the slow part: you are laying down big tan sections and the faux wood-grain front, mostly stacking and tiling to nail that clean rectangular look, so do not expect fancy techniques here, it is patience work. Then the fun kicks in. The six switches and the joystick are satisfying little mechanisms, the joystick genuinely tilts, and the best bit is the pop-up 1980s room that swings up like a storybook page when you slide the front panel forward. On top of that you build three separate cartridge scenes for Asteroids, Adventure and Centipede, which break up the monotony nicely.

On pieces, the headline is that hidden room, packed with printed nostalgia: posters nodding to Johnny Thunder and the classic Galaxy Explorer, a retro TV, a boom box, a corded phone, roller skates, and the single minifigure, the wonderful Atari Boy in his striped tee mid-game. The wood-effect and tan tiling gives you a big, genuinely useful haul of basic plates and tiles for MOC builders, even if there are not many headline new molds. At 2,532 pieces for its price, the part-count value is only okay by LEGO standards, but you are really paying for the accuracy and that clever reveal, not a bargain brick count.

Fun facts

01LEGO released this in 2022 to celebrate Atari's 50th anniversary, the company having launched back in 1972.
02The model is built to roughly 1:1 scale, so it's about the same size as a real Atari 2600 sitting on your shelf.
03Slide the front panel forward and a full 1980s bedroom pops up inside like a storybook page, complete with a kid, a TV, a boom box and roller skates.
04It was designed by Chris McVeigh, a longtime LEGO fan-builder and self-confessed Atari devotee, and the set retired at the end of 2024.