Gel Ball: Influencer Edition? Plus More

A while back, there was industry news of partnerships between Hasbro and influencers Mr. Beast and Luka Dončić (NBA player) for various Nerf endeavors. The latter association was known to lead to a Gelfire release eventually…but it turns out Mr. Beast gets one as well.

Days later, Gel Blaster announces a new edition of the flagship Surge blaster with David Dobrik. Who’s apparently an influencer as well? Honestly, until the last week, I knew none of these names.

Even with the influencer versions of blasters incoming, there are multiple things scheduled to arrive at the beginning of next year. Because regardless of pending litigation, Hasbro, Prime Time Toys, and Gel Blaster are all continuing to battle for market share in gel ball.

Influencer Editions

The Mr. Beast Mythic, in addition to custom colors and decals, comes with a slim hopper. The hopper looks cool, but it does hold only 300 rounds – and it makes me wonder how well it will actually feed. You get double the ammo to start with, though, and the price is set at $70. That’s ten less than the initial Mythic MSRP, but also more than the $60 that the Mythic is retailing for in most stores as of this writing. So depending on what you’re treating the Mythic as being “worth”, this could be either a more expensive special edition or a special edition that’s also a downgrade. I’m not even going to try guessing the pricing scheme.

In any case, it’s due to land in April, but it is already up for preorder in several places. So people excited for anything Mr. Beast will need to wait.

Gel Blaster, meanwhile, didn’t do anything particularly special with the David Dobrik edition of the Surge Starfire. It’s blue, and has his initials on the grip…but otherwise works the same. Granted, for the same price as the Mr Beast Mythic, it shoots faster and also glows in the dark (the videos on Gel Blaster’s social media do look cool when highlighting the GITD features). According to that same social media, there are only going to be 11,111 of these made. Whether that inspires you to get this over a regular version is another matter, though.

The DD edition is available now at Walmart.com.

Elsewhere in Gel Ball Land…

This past weekend, an Amazon entry for the Nerf Pro Gelfire Legion appeared. It’s currently unavailable, but already lists the price ($35) and other information. It’s spring-powered, features a 130-round hopper (but is compatible with previous hoppers), and also has slamfire. There aren’t many manual gel ball blasters out there (at least for the regular US market, Dart Zone beat them to the punch with the $25 Hydro Strike Nebula Pro), but there’s logically a market for entry blasters and sidearms, especially when operating at lower ammo velocities like Nerf seems to be doing with gel ball.

I have no clue when this will actually be available, but the page on Amazon is still there if you want to check back later.

As for Dart Zone, they’re going to be releasing two blasters exclusively at Target under the “Gel Zone Pro” name. The Youtube videos for the two products have been made private, but the website still has renders to see. The Stormer appears to be a Nebula Pro in a new shell, while the Hydrax is a motorized blaster that, based on performance claims, looks to have miniaturized internals similar to the Nerf Pro Gelfire Mythic, Gel Blaster Surge, and many other mini gearbox gel/airsoft blasters. We’ll just have to wait for them to release more info on the release dates and prices.