In case the very concept of a hundred-person battle to be the last one standing wasn't hardcore enough for you, Fortnite is making some promising moves toward a dedicated competitive mode. The new Solo Showdown Limited-Time Mode that went live today trades the usual rules tweaks (like letting you play as Thanos) for a meta-game competition to see who can play the best across 50 rounds. Yeah, Fortnite always tracked your performance across matches, but now it's putting its V-Bucks where its stats are.
The Solo Showdown mode will be playable through 7am PDT / 10 am EDT / 3 pm BST on Monday, May 21st. After that, Epic will tally the results for each players' first 50 Solo Showdown matches (you must play at least 50 to qualify and any match results after that won't affect your ranking). Claiming Victory Royale in a qualifying Solo Showdown match will earn you 100 placement points, second place will get you 94, and the points steadily drop down to a minimum of 25 points for players 76 through 100. Total wins, total eliminations, and average placement will be factored in to break placement point ties if necessary. Epic's site has the full rules rundown.
And what do you get for all this building and battling?
Fortnite Solo Showdown mode prizes
- No. 1 winner: 50,000 V-Bucks
- 2nd, 3rd, and 4th places: 25,000 V-Bucks
- 5th through 50th places: 13,500 V-Bucks
- 51st through 100th places: 7,500 V-Bucks
- And a note for people who suck at Fortnite like me: everybody who finishes their 50 qualifying matches will get an exclusive in-game spray regardless of performance.
If you don't do all your accounting in V-Bucks these days, the grand prize is roughly $500 in in-game currency. Not bad! But it's not exactly free money, because you will have to put in some decent hours to complete 50 matches in under five days.
Epic says it will use Solo Showdown as a learning experience for "how to build great events for all types of players." And yes, it sounds very much like that includes a more permanent solution for hardcore PvP types: Epic says a big announcement about competitive play is coming next week.
See what else is new in Battle Royale with our look at 5 things you need to know about Fortnite 4.2.
