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Nerfers and Gentlemen! Hasbro has just announced a new Nerf War tournament style game type that they’ve been developing for what seems like almost a decade! This new Nerf sport is called Nerfball. It’s Nerf’s first-ever official sport and if I had to describe it, well, it’s… basically just a Nerf version of the Call of Duty Uplink game mode.
Nerf’s First Ever ‘Official’ Sport is Played with Nerf Blasters!
Two 5-man teams, one Nerfball, and Nerf blasters? The new sport was designed around use with Nerf’s first Pro blaster, the Nerf Pro Stryfe X (review coming soon). Everyone on both teams had a Stryfe X in the promotional game that was posted on the company’s website.
A single Nerfball lies in the center of the field and players rush to grab it first. There’s a hoop in the spawn area of each team where you can score goals by throwing the ball through the hoop. Tagging your opponents with your Nerf blaster also scores points.
The New NERFBALL Game Mode Is Just Call of Duty Uplink
Something hit me almost instantly while watching the promo game of Nerfball. This all just seemed way too familiar. Then I realized that it is literally a cookie cutter copy of Call of Duty Uplink from the Jetpack COD games (Advanced Warfare, Black Ops 3, and Infinite Warfare). All of these COD games had the game mode Uplink.
In Nerfball, you have two opposing teams with a ball in the middle that you have to secure and then throw through a goal in the enemy teams starting area to score. In COD Uplink, you have a “satellite drone” that you have to deposit into the enemy Uplink station. The satellite drone is spherical in shape, so yeah, it’s a ball. You throw the satellite drone into the enemies Uplink station to score, all while eliminating enemy players… just like in Nerfball.
The only difference is this is real life and not a video game! Instead of real guns, you use Nerf blasters. And also, you can get extra points for dunking in Uplink. This is something I think they should consider adding to this new Nerf sport. Who doesn’t always want to see someone get dunked on? C’mon.
Nerfball is the Future of Nerf War
Nerfball is not exactly what I thought it’d be, but if Nerf sells the necessary equipment to play the game at home? That would be epic. And apparently, this is all a part of the plan. Nerf plans on selling the Nerfball, they’re already selling the Nerf Pro Stryfe X (purchase link), and they do plan on selling Sensor Vests, too.
The sensor vest wasn’t shown at the promotional gameplay Nerf shared with us, but it seems that this gear will be a huge part of the game. The vest is supposed to be able to register hits from darts and automatically tag the player out by flashing red lights when you’re hit. The enemy player then has to exit the field and head back to the respawn area.
Wearing vests that signal and keep track of dart tags is honestly revolutionary for Nerf. This will discourage all of the blatant cheaters that can sometimes be on a Nerf War battlefield. This also brings Nerf up to the levels of Laser Tag. The line is blurring even further between Nerf, airsoft, paintball, and now laser tag.
Nerfball in a Nutshell.
Nerfball seems to be an exciting new Nerf War game type that I will definitely adopt when hosting local Nerf Wars in my area. If Nerf comes through with all of the necessary equipment, including the Nerfball itself, the goals, and the vests, then I will be one happy Nerfer.
Earlier I alluded to the fact that Nerfball isn’t exactly what I thought it would be and now I’ll explain that. When people were first talking about this years ago, I thought it would directly involve the actual Nerf community. I thought your regular, everyday, Joe Blo Nerfer would be able to participate. Whether it was an annual tournament or a big Nerf War hosted by Nerf themselves, I don’t know, but I thought it would be something like that.
I thought Nerf would be letting the people play the game, similar to the way Dart Zone hosts their own Pro Tournament with actual players. Instead, they hired some random sports players that I’m not familiar with at all. Aside from Luke Goodman (OutofDarts), I had no idea who any of these people were. I really would have preferred to see actual Nerfers from our community, but maybe that’s just me.
Luke was a good start, but how about some other notable Nerfers from the community?
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