This is not a photo; Hasbro’s only sharing digital renders of the product. | Image: Hasbro
If you’ve been to a toy aisle recently, you’ve probably seen how cartoony Fortnite renditions of real-world guns dominate the shelves. Now, Hasbro is licensing the blasters of another mega-hit video game: League of Legends. But if you or your giftee has a LOL obsession, know that the starting price of a Nerf object of power won’t be cheap.
The company’s first blaster is the $170 Jinx Fishbones, a cosplay-grade blaster from the same pricey “Nerf LMTD” brand that’s producing the Destiny 2 Gjallarhorn rocket launcher, Halo Needler, Aliens Pulse Rifle, and Mandalorian Amban Phase-pulse blaster. The nearly three-foot-long blaster is now on preorder at Amazon and Hasbro Pulse and scheduled to release on December 1st of next year.
It’s an 18-dart affair that fires three at a time, like a smaller version of Nerf’s 2017 blaster The Judge — pull back on the top fin to prime what’s presumably a spring-loaded piston, pull the trigger to send three darts flying, then repeat.
GIF by Sean Hollister / The Verge
How the blaster works.
Even as LMTD products go, this one seems to be more, ahem, bare-bones than most — no batteries for lights or sound, and you need to open the admittedly cool jaws manually. There’s no button or lever to make this shark bite, though it does come with a display stand.
At $170, it seems like one that’ll mostly be destined to grace the shelves of League of Legends streamers rather than something that’ll see play. But if you love what you see, you probably won’t have to pay that price forever: Hasbro might rerelease a cheaper version like it did with the underwhelming Mandalorian blaster (compare this to its original $120 sticker price), or you might find excess inventory on sale, like how the awesome GameStop-exclusive $130 Overwatch Soldier 76 blaster can currently be had for $50.
Image: Hasbro
Nerf LMTD blasters always come with very fancy packaging; this one’s practically got a mural on the box.