The Infinus Is Nerf’s First Automatic ‘Reloading’ Blaster

When you’re in the middle of some basement Nerf warfare with the kids, ducking and rolling as darts whizz over your head, reloading is a giant pain in the ass. Especially, if you’re carrying something monstrous like the Doomlands Judge or Prometheus. Reloading 30 darts into a giant drum or magazine, one by one, really makes you a target. Which is why, for all of the advancements with automatic firing blasters, it’s surprising that Nerf hasn’t focused much on speeding up the reloading process. Well, they have now. Nerf’s new N-Strike Elite Infinus Gun is the first automatic loading blaster.

The new Infinus debuted at last month’s Toy Fair and, while it won’t hit shelves until the fall, is worth getting pumped about. Although you don’t have to pump it. It’s a fully automatic 30-shot drum barrel blaster with pistol grip and a shoulder stock. It boasts motorized rapid-fire blasting and an acceleration button that, when held down, powers it up even more. All pretty standard stuff at this point with Nerf blasters.

What isn’t, however, is the new Quick-Load Technology. On top of the blaster is a loading hole in which you slide the darts. As you insert the dart, it gets sucked into the gun, vacuum-style and is loaded in the drum. That’s it. You simply feed the darts in tip first, one at at time, until the light on top changes from green to red. The secret is a mechanism that runs off 4 D batteries, which presumably adds some heft to the weapon. Of course, you can forgo the batteries — the drum does pop off and can be manually loaded. But where’s the advantage in that?

The Infinus is slated to cost $70 when it’s released in the fall.