Dreamzzz

Nightmare Shark Submarine

A big, toothy, missile-spitting shark that's more fun than it is fresh.

Brick Rated Score

3.8/5

Set 71500 · 2025

Pieces1,413

Minifigs5

Year2025

Set number71500

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The verdict

This is the biggest LEGO® DREAMZzz set of 2025, and there's a genuinely great toy in here once it's built.

It's a proper 2-in-1, so you get a snarling shark submarine that rebuilds into a hammerhead battleship, both packed with firing shooters and a little prison inside the belly. The thing holding it back is déjà vu: fans of the show have basically seen this shark before in the 2023 Nightmare Ship, so if you own that one, the magic dims. For a kid who loves the series and doesn't care about the history, though, it's a riot.

Best for: DREAMZzz fans aged 9 and up who want the biggest, most playable set in the range

The full review

What it is

There's a specific kind of joy in a set that ends with a giant snarling shark aiming missiles at your other toys, and this one delivers exactly that. The Nightmare Shark Submarine is the largest DREAMZzz set of 2025 at 1,413 pieces, and it leans all the way into the show's dream-logic villainy. You build a brick-built shark first, then it converts into either a shark submarine with a piloted cockpit tucked behind the head, or a hammerhead battleship with a sinister T-shaped skull and glowing eye slits. Both modes look properly menacing, which is the whole point of a Nightmare set. The trans-pink blades that form the tail are a lovely nasty touch, and the opening tooth-filled mouth with its dual shooters is the kind of feature a nine-year-old will fire roughly four thousand times.

The catch

Now for the honest bit, because you deserve it. If you know the theme, this shark will feel familiar, and that's the biggest knock reviewers landed. It's the spiritual successor to 2023's 71469 Nightmare Shark Ship, and a few critics felt it reads more like an updated remake than a genuinely new villain vehicle. If you already own the older ship, some of the wonder gets muted. The price is the other thing to sit with. At $149.99 for 1,413 pieces you're paying a slight premium, and while the two builds soften that, it's not a bargain-bin buy. The build itself is fun but not clever the whole way through. The shark's body uses a lot of the same shaping moves in a row, so the middle stretch gets a little repetitive before the fun details return at the head and tail.

Who it's for

So who actually walks away happy here? A kid who's into the DREAMZzz show and wants the biggest, most swooshable thing in the 2025 range will adore it, and honestly so will a lot of grown-ups who just like a good chunky creature build with real play value. The modular shooters even clip onto other 2025 DREAMZzz sets, so it plays nicely with the rest of the wave. If you own the 2023 shark and you're chasing something surprising, this probably isn't the one to stretch for. But if this is your first Nightmare shark and you want maximum toothy chaos per box, it earns its spot on the shelf. I came in skeptical about the remake talk and left grinning at the hammerhead. That counts for something.

The parts story

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

The build breaks into clear stages, and the pacing swings between delightful and a bit patient. You start with the shark's core body, which is where a lot of the repeated shaping lives, so settle in for a stretch of similar techniques before the payoff arrives. Things pick up sharply at the head, where the opening maw, the tooth work, and the dual missile shooters come together, and again at the tail with those trans-pink blades. The internal prison and the piloting cockpit add nice fiddly interest, and then the 2-in-1 nature means you get to do it all again in a different shape if you tackle the hammerhead battleship, which is genuinely a fresh silhouette rather than a lazy re-clip.

On parts, this is a colour and creature set more than a rare-mold treasure chest. The trans-pink blade elements and the dark, moody body palette are the pieces you'll notice, and the printed and specialty bits go into the minifigures rather than the hull. You get five proper minifigures, Mateo, Logan, Astrid, a Dreamer, and a new Dreamsmasher that's the real collector's draw, plus Z-Blob and three little Cyberling creatures for eight figures on the shelf if you count them all. The modular stud shooters are the sleeper value: they're cross-compatible with the rest of the 2025 DREAMZzz range, so they're not single-set throwaways. At roughly ten and a half cents a piece the part-count value is fair rather than fantastic, but the two full builds and the figure lineup are where the money actually goes.

Fun facts

01This is the largest LEGO DREAMZzz set of 2025, topping the range at 1,413 pieces.
02It's a genuine 2-in-1: the same bricks build either a shark submarine or a hammerhead battleship, each with its own play features.
03It's widely seen as the spiritual successor to 2023's 71469 Nightmare Shark Ship, one of the theme's original launch villains.
04The stud shooters are modular and clip onto other 2025 DREAMZzz sets, so the shark can share firepower with the rest of the wave.