LOS ANGELES — It’s time to blast those balls.

Blastball is a new soccer-style game with guns from Nintendo. The publisher announced the new game at its World Championships event today prior to this week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo tradeshow. It ended up being a surprise event for the competitors in Nintendo’s competition, and it pitted two teams of three against each other. The goal is to blast a giant orb into the opponent’s net by shooting it and using power-ups.

It’s an intense looking shooter/sports game, and it’s another example of how Nintendo is rethinking shooters, as it has with Splatoon, and competitive play.

While we only saw a few matches of the 3DS game during the Nintendo World Championships, it was easy to imagine all of the different strategies you could employ. One of the team focused entirely on the ball while the other would peel off to pick up power-ups — in that game, the latter squad won. In another round, with two other teams in an even matchup, one team played like a pro soccer team with a forward, a midfielder, and a defender. That teamwork helped them immediately get ahead.

The initial response to Blastball from the assembled crowd of Nintendo fans was somewhat muted, but after the two competitive matches, everyone seemed into the intense action.