There are as many types of Nerf darts as there are arrows in Hawkeye’s quiver. There are darts for distance and darts for quick-loading. There are suction darts and darts that glow in the dark. There’s even a dart that whistles, for when you want your opponent to both feel and hear their fate. Now, the iconic toy company has developed a dart that does perhaps the very most important thing: Go where you want it to.
That’s the idea behind the new Accustrike line, which comprises four new blasters and, more importantly, a dart that’s been totally redesigned from tip to tail. The result, as you may have surmised, is the most accurate Nerf dart to date.
If that seems like an overdue point of focus, Nerf’s customers would agree. A deadeye dart has been at the top of their wish list for a long time, says Nerf marketing VP Michael Ritchie.
“One [consumer demand] that’s come up over the last couple of years was that they wanted more precision,” says Ritchie. “There’s sometimes a perception that when you fire the dart, because it’s foam, and because of the years and years of what we’ve created, that it’s maybe not as accurate or precise as they would want it to be,” Ritchie says.
Work on Accustrike began in earnest roughly two years ago---the darts and blasters go on sale next spring---during which time the design team considered over 10 different models for the dart tip alone.
