The least pleasant part of a friendly Nerf fight is not hit, it must constantly stop to recharge your blaster. The inconvenience improved with Nerf’s Rival Line, which started in 2015, but for 2021 the company proposes a new Hyper series blasters which fires smaller foam bulbs so you will spend even less time recharging.
The Rival line was not the first time Nerf turned to foam balls as an ammunition alternative to darts, but the real attraction was that it could throw those small spheres (which look like soft miniature golf balls) at speeds up to 70 MPH, or about 100 feet per second. Not fast enough to leave a bruise, as paintballs can do, but fast enough to actively avoid getting hit during a shootout. For its new Hyper line, Nerf redesigned the foam balls with a new explosive that flies faster and faster, although the speed of about 110 feet per second is now not the real attraction.
The reduced size of the Nerf Hyper-ammo means that a hopper or a magazine has four times the capacity it would have with Nerf Rival rounds. Thus, a competitor with a cargo container of 100 shots can hold 400 Hyper rounds, but since a new and smaller shooting mechanism is required, it seems that the new Hyper balls are not backwards compatible.
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Instead, sometime in 2021, Nerf will launch the Hyper line with three blasters to begin with: the $ 30 Nerf Hyper Rush-40 with a pistol design and a 40 shotgun, the $ 40 Nerf Hyper Siege-50 with a 50-shot capacity and a pump-action rifle design, and the fully automatic $ 70 Nerf Hyper Mach-100 that uses D-size batteries to quickly empty its 100-bucket when you pull the trigger.
It is not known whether Nerf will continue to add to the Rival line once the Hyper line becomes available. But with better distance, faster speeds, greater capacity and a cheaper price per shot (refills of 200 Hyper-rounds will sell for less than $ 30), it’s hard to imagine fans not eager for the new line will embrace and say a tearful goodbye to Rival.