VIDIYO

Punk Pirate Ship

A genuinely good pirate ship stranded by a theme that sank in under a year.

Brick Rated Score

3.4/5

Set 43114 · 2021

Pieces602

Minifigs3

Year2021

Set number43114

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The verdict

Here is the strange thing about the Punk Pirate Ship: the actual ship is lovely, and almost nobody bought it for the ship.

It came out of VIDIYO, LEGO's music-video experiment that was gone from shelves within a year, so the app gimmick that was supposed to be the whole point is now dead and buried. What you are left with is a big, sturdy, cheerfully weird pirate vessel with three of the most characterful little figures LEGO made that year. If you can look past the branding and just want a fun ship, it holds up better than its reputation.

Best for: Pirate fans who want a big playable ship and do not care one bit about the defunct app

The full review

What it is

I came to this one expecting to roll my eyes, because VIDIYO has a bit of a punchline reputation now, and instead the ship won me over. It is a proper chunky pirate vessel, punk styled with bright colours and a skull motif, and it feels solid in the hand rather than fragile and gappy like a lot of playsets this size. The three figures are the real hook: Shark with his yellow mohawk and three-stringed bass shaped like an anchor, Mermaid with genuinely lovely torso and tail printing, and Squid rounding out the little band. For a theme people wrote off, LEGO clearly put real love into these characters.

The catch

I will be straight with you about why the score is not higher. This set exists to sell an app experience, and that app is gone. VIDIYO launched in 2021, went on hiatus by that summer, was pulled from shelves by the start of 2022, and the app itself was switched off in January 2024. So the scan-the-model, scan-the-figures, perform-on-a-digital-stage pitch on the box is now completely dead. On top of that, the build is honestly quite plain. It goes together in under an hour with a fair bit of repetition and not a lot of parts variety, so if you build for clever technique you will find this thin.

Who it's for

Get this if you want a big, playable pirate ship and you treat the whole VIDIYO layer as irrelevant, because as a toy it genuinely delivers and those minifigures are keepers. Kids in particular love the mermaid and the daft aquatic band. Skip it if you were hoping the app play would still work, or if you build mainly for engineering and display, because on both counts this will leave you cold. It is a good ship trapped inside a dead idea, and your enjoyment depends entirely on whether you can separate the two.

The parts story

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

Building this is a relaxed, low-stress hour. The hull comes together in big satisfying sections, the whole thing ends up reassuringly rigid, and there are no stickers to fuss over, which I always appreciate at this size. It is not a build that will teach you anything new, though. There is noticeable repetition in the deck and railings, and the parts palette leans on fairly standard elements, so experienced builders will cruise through on autopilot rather than pausing to admire a clever connection.

The standout pieces are the printed ones, not the structural ones. The three minifigures carry the whole set: Shark's skull-and-crossbones tattoo, protruding tongue and pirate vest, Mermaid's detailed torso and tail with arm-tattoo printing, and Squid to complete the trio. You also get a pile of BeatBits, the decorated 2x2 tiles unique to VIDIYO (14 random plus 3 special here), which are essentially printed tiles you can repurpose for anything. For roughly 600 pieces at its original price the value was always fair, and now that it is retired the figures are the part worth chasing.

Fun facts

01VIDIYO was a short-lived collaboration between LEGO and Universal Music Group, launched in early 2021 and pulled from shelves by the start of 2022 after being judged a commercial flop.
02The companion app that gave this ship its whole purpose, letting you scan the model and figures to film music videos, was supported until it was finally shut down on January 25, 2024.
03LEGO released around 42 VIDIYO sets in total across the theme's brief life, and this ship was one of the largest builds in the range.
04Every one of the three minifigures (Shark, Mermaid and Squid) is exclusive to this set, which is a big part of why collectors still hunt it down secondhand.