The worst-kept secret in toy aisles is out. According to a leak reported by GameRant, a new LEGO Pokemon product has slipped online ahead of any official announcement, and the reporting points to a blind box release. Nothing's confirmed until Nintendo or The Pokemon Company actually says so, but if the leak holds up, this one's been telegraphed for a while.

The blind box format is the interesting part, assuming that's what this turns out to be. Instead of one big statement set, you'd buy a small mystery pod and pull a random Pokemon, which is basically the LEGO take on a booster pack. The Pokemon Company has milked that exact psychology dry with the TCG for decades, so the logic checks out. A kid (or a 44-year-old man, no judgment) buys a little Pikachu or Eevee build, gets hooked on the randomness, and suddenly there's a shelf's worth of them. I want to stress the pod-and-random-pull specifics come from the leak reporting, not from anyone official.

It also fits how LEGO usually handles licensed lines at the collectible end of the shelf. Low price point, high replay value, collectors buying multiples to chase the rare pull. Anyone who's watched a hot TCG release draw lines around the block, the way Prismatic Evolutions did last year, knows exactly how this movie ends.

What I can't tell you is how long this deal, if it is a deal, has been in the works. Fans have begged for LEGO Pokemon for years because it's one of the few mega-franchises that never got the brick treatment, and that's about the extent of what's verifiable today. The rest is rumor, and rumor doesn't need my help.

No confirmed word on which Pokemon make the cut, price, or a release window. Expect an official announcement whenever The Pokemon Company decides the moment is right, and until then everything past "LEGO Pokemon exists in some form" is playing the odds.

For what it's worth, temper expectations on anything ambitious anyway. First waves of licensed LEGO lines play it safe with the starters and the mascots. If you want my bet, Pikachu's a lock, Charmander and friends are close behind, and the genuinely weird picks like Gengar or Snorlax come later if the line sells. My first Pokemon game was Red on a Game Boy the size of a brick, and even I'll admit a little brick Gengar on my desk sounds dangerously easy to justify.