Nerf N-Series: It’s Nerf darts or nothing for these cool new blasters

when I was a kid, “It’s Nerf or nothing” Meaning you can’t find a better dart blaster. Starting today, this means you’ll have to buy expensive Hasbro darts if you buy Hasbro blasters for your kids.

Today the company is unveiling its new Nerf N-Series lineup, and a new “N1” dart toy that it calls “the future” of the Nerf brand — a future in which Hasbro blasters for kids ages 8 to 14 fire only Hasbro darts that cost three Five times the competition. Lose arrows? That would be 25 cents, because only official darts have it Patented Which pushes the safety mechanism out of the way.

The blasters themselves are cool, but is Nerf making fun of Ultra again? Not quite, for three important reasons.

First, although today’s new kids’ blasters won’t support any existing darts or magazine, the company says the Nerf Pro brand — which it supports — will continue. “We are expanding [age] “Over 14 lines of blasters we’ve launched with Stryfe X,” confirms Nerf Product Design Director John Falkowski when I ask. “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by what you see when these items are announced.”

Second – see the gallery above – the new N-Series launchers feature big, bold, and often satisfying designs that launch darts noticeably farther than Hasbro’s previous kid-friendly options! By making the new N1 darts shorter, wider and more squishy, ​​Nerf can now fire at 90 feet per second, compared to 70 fps for the Elite darts they replace, without increasing the weight of the darts (still 1 gram) or impacting a child.

I measured four of the new pistols with my chronograph, and they were everyone It averages 90 fps – excluding the secondary barrel of Ward’s two-shot pistol, which hits 83-84 fps. Arrows still fly off target with the slightest headwind, as I discovered immediately, but many fly perfectly straight without it.

Safety is the Falkowski explains why Nerf has broken ground with over a decade of Elite darts. The new dart is wider and shorter so it can be softer and safer, and its core is there to “maintain the integrity of the Nerf brand” by ensuring a certain amount of safety at this speed. As a result, Hasbro will not ship the safety glasses with these explosives.

“There are always pros and cons to a closed system,” admits Patrick Schneider, Nerf’s global marketing director, hinting that I should be looking for new gear this fall that appeals to a larger age range.

The third reason Ultra has not been replicated is the prices – they are not prohibitive for these new explosives. Although it is somewhat ridiculous to charge a two-shot pistol with only two arrows (you need to buy more if you lose even one!) offered at this price for a long time. The cynical Ultra line ships with a less interesting amplifier for $50.

None of this means Hasbro is ahead of the competition: competitors have proven your capabilities no Need to break compatibility with over a decade of elite sized darts in order to increase range and accuracy while meeting safety requirements. While Hasbro says these darts are better than their Elite toy in every way, that’s an incredibly low bar, and the team dodged my question about how they stack up against competing darts that cost much less.

But I can’t deny that these blasters look pretty cool — aside from the occasional jam in my Infinite review unit, I’m not sure what’s going on there — and that I would have enjoyed them as a kid.

In the US, Target will also have two exclusive blasters: the $25 Strikeback-like pump-action shotgun, with an internal six-dart clip and side panels that shoot forward to provide a recoil sensation when fired; and the $30 Shadow Storm, a top-loading revolver with an eight-dart internal clip that comes with a detachable barrel, stock and sight.

Walmart will have the $30 Sprinter, the line’s only autoblaster, which requires six AA batteries and has a detachable 16-dart magazine and semi-automatic firing.

The first N-Series launchers will arrive in June and July.

Photography by Sean Hollister/The Verge