Fortnite

Battle Bus

The whole Fortnite drop squad, one blue bus, and a balloon that steals the show.

Brick Rated Score

4.2/5

Set 77073 · 2024

Pieces954

Minifigs9

Year2024

Set number77073

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The verdict

This was LEGO's very first Fortnite set, and honestly it makes a smart first impression: the recognisable blue school bus, the floaty hot air balloon on top, and nine exclusive minifigures crammed into one box.

The bus itself is a gentle build, but that balloon is where the cleverness lives. My one hesitation is the price, because at a hundred dollars you are really paying for the minifigure lineup as much as the vehicle. If you play Fortnite or you just want all nine of these characters in one go, it is an easy yes.

Best for: Fortnite players who want every launch-wave minifigure in a single box

The full review

What it is

This is the set that kicked off LEGO Fortnite, and I remember how much noise it made when the first wave dropped in 2024. It is the Battle Bus, that blue American school bus reborn as a flying troop carrier with a hot air balloon strapped to the roof. Finished, it stands over eleven inches tall and reads instantly as the thing that drops you onto the island every match. What got me was not the bus body, which is friendly and familiar, but the balloon: it is the one part of this set that made me slow down and pay attention. The rest of the build is comfortable, even the twenty one windows you frame up one after another, so the balloon arriving as a proper sculptural challenge is a welcome jolt near the end.

The catch

I have to be straight with you about the money, though. At $99.99 this is one bus and nine minifigures, and that is genuinely the whole thing. Reviewers nicknamed it the one bus problem for a reason: you are paying flagship money for what is essentially the entire launch minifigure series bundled with a vehicle to carry them. There are practical annoyances too. The bus is meant to seat all nine figures, but the roof cross bar behind the middle row does not leave clearance for taller hair and headgear, and poor Meowscles literally has to have his tail removed before he will sit down. Value has also softened on the secondary market since release, so this is not one to buy as an investment.

Who it's for

So who should get this? If you play Fortnite, or you have someone in the house who does, this is the obvious centrepiece, because every character here is exclusive and getting all nine any other way would cost you more and take longer. Display fans get a tall, colourful, recognisable model that photographs beautifully. The people I would gently steer away are builders chasing engineering depth, because outside of that balloon the bus is straightforward, and anyone who cares more about part count value than the licence, because a hundred dollars for 954 pieces is really the minifig premium talking.

The parts story

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

Building this is a tale of two halves. The bus is relaxed, honest brick work, the kind of construction you can do with a show on in the background, right down to the repetitive but oddly soothing job of dropping twenty one windows into their frames. Then the balloon lands on top and the pace changes completely: it is the sophisticated section, curved and layered, the part that asks you to concentrate and rewards you when it clicks together. Total build time lands around five hours, so it fills an afternoon without ever feeling like a slog.

The real treasure here is in the minifigures, because this is where LEGO hid all the new moulds for the theme. Peely gets a brand new banana head piece (element 5215), and it is smarter than the old Banana Guy costume from the collectible minifigure line because it is a head in its own right, so Peely can actually sit down while wearing it. Look closer and there is a lovely deep cut on Peely's heel: a yellow telephone receiver piece last seen in a 2019 Stranger Things set. Add Meowscles' custom cat head, plus battle royale accessories like grapplers, pickaxes and Slurp Juice, and the parts interest is almost entirely riding in those nine seats rather than in the bus around them.

Fun facts

01This was one of the four sets in the very first LEGO Fortnite wave, released in July 2024, and it quickly became the most popular of the launch lineup, spending long stretches on backorder.
02All nine minifigures are exclusive to this set, and reviewers noted it was a bold move to pack an entire theme's worth of launch characters into a single box.
03Peely's new banana head hides a nod for parts nerds: the yellow telephone receiver on his heel had previously only appeared in 75810 The Upside Down from 2019.