Official NERF BATTLE Game on Quest 2 is HERE & It’s A Blast! Literally

Chary wouldn’t do the laundry, so we settled it the only fair way: a NERF battle, loser does the washing. NERF Ultimate Championship is the official NERF game for Quest 2, by developer Secret Location. You squad up in 4 vs 4 multiplayer battles with authentic virtual NERF blasters, with moves like wall running, ricochets and slam firing a storm of darts at your opponents. It launched on Quest 2 on the day this video went out, for $15 including three season passes. Here’s how it plays, a team battle, and my thoughts. (VAL, the Virtual Athletics League, sponsored this video. That paid for our time, not for the opinion.)

What’s in the game at launch

• 4 characters to pick from
• 10 authentic NERF blasters, which you might recognise if you’ve played with the real ones
• 4 maps
• 3 game modes

The modes:

• King of the Hill: control the centre point to reach 200 points.
• Multi-point capture: control three capture points to reach 500 points.
• Team Battle: the first team to 35 eliminations wins.

The mechanics, from the tutorial

I started with the tutorial, which I’d recommend.

You move with the left joystick and jump with A, and you can double jump. The right joystick crouches artificially, but I prefer crouching with my own body, which is more immersive. You climb ledges automatically, and you sprint automatically when you move forward. Time it right and you run along walls, which is very cool.

The blasters work like the real ones. You prime after every shot, and when a blaster is empty you grab darts from your backpack and push them into the right spot to reload. Slam fire is a pretty cool mechanic: hold the trigger and keep priming, and you fire darts in quick succession. Aiming while you prime is hard, so there’s an auto-prime option. You fire slower with it, but aiming gets easier, so pick whichever suits how you play. Some blasters have to rev up first, so you hold the trigger before they fire, and you can find special blasters around the map.

Your shield is your health. When it runs out you’re eliminated, and it recharges a few seconds after you’re hit, so taking cover helps.

NERF Ultimate Championship gameplay: a team battle

We played a team elimination match together, and it’s chaos in the best way. There’s a lot of shouting “behind you”, running after each other, and scrambling for good blasters. Teamwork matters: we kept calling out where the other team was and tried to stick together. At one point I nearly got a double elimination. We finished with a GG and an MVP screen.

After each match you earn experience to unlock skins for your characters and blasters.

The social hub and seasons

At launch you play in a pre-season. The developers already have three more seasons planned, with new content like levels, maps, blasters and game modes.

In the hub you can:

• pick your avatar and its skins
• look at your blasters and pick skins you’ve earned
• check the season passes
• see other players when there are a lot online
• try out all the current blasters, including a machine-gun-style one you can sometimes find in matches

Play around with them, because they all have different specs: some shoot further, some hit harder.

What works and what doesn’t

What I like:

• It’s a straightforward arena battle game: easy to pick up, fast and action-packed.
• The blaster mechanics stay as close to the real ones as possible. The priming and the dart physics are cool.
• It’s more family friendly than similar games. You’re shooting darts, so it doesn’t feel aggressive, which fits the NERF brand.
• For accessibility, you don’t have to bend down or reach high. Most things you grab are at a comfortable level.
• Comfort-wise it’s intense, but there are enough comfort options. Check them if you get motion sick.

What needs work:

• Reloading while dual wielding is awkward. It needs holsters, because it’s easy to lose a blaster. The developers told me they’re looking at this after launch.
• With multiplayer-only games, I always wonder whether people keep coming back. That usually takes a good progression system and new content fast, or the player base dies out. I’m not sure yet that the progression is rewarding enough, though I may not have played enough.

Who it’s for

Overall we enjoyed our time in it. I think there’s a market for this kind of game, especially at this pretty good price. If you want a competitive multiplayer game for all ages, check out NERF Ultimate Championship on the Meta Quest store, and join their Discord to find other players.

And yes, I’m the one doing the laundry.