How to get a Fortnite Victory Crown, and unlock the Fortnite Crown Emote

The Fortnite Victory Crown is a fresh gameplay element that provides an additional reward for those who win the battle royale, though the stakes are high if you want to claim it. If you're victorious and win a Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 1 match you'll begin the next one proudly displaying a Victory Crown, but this will glow and help you opponents hunt you down as a more attractive target. That's the risk, but if you survive it and go on to take the win while wearing the crown then you'll also claim an elusive Crowned Victory Royale, in addition to unlocking the Fortnite Crown Emote that displays the exact number of special victories you've racked up in Fortnite when you perform it. If you want the lowdown on how the Fortnite Victory Crown works, we've got all of the details right here.

How to get a Fortnite Victory Crown

Fortnite Chapter 3 Season 1 — (Image credit: Epic Games)

There are two ways to get hold of a Fortnite Victory Crown, which is the key to unlocking a Crowned Victory Royale. The first method is to finish in a high enough position during a match, after which you'll automatically start the next match wearing your Victory Crown. This is available in the core game modes, for the following final positions:

Solo: The top player only
Duos, Trios and Squads: The players in the top team only

Note that when Chapter 3 originally launched, the top four players in Solo and the top two teams in Duos would all be rewarded with a Fortnite Victory Crown, so that three to four players in total would receive them in each match. However, Epic announced on December 9 that this had been reduced to just the winning player(s) in each battle royale, making Victory Crowns a considerably rarer item to discover in a match now.

The second way to receive a Fortnite Victory Crown is to steal it, by eliminating a player that was wearing one. When that player is eliminated you'll see a notification in your feed that they've dropped a Victory Crown, and it will appear on the map as a crown icon. The first player to get to it and pick it up will then wear the Victory Crown, making them eligible for a Crowned Victory Royale but also more visible to other players.

How to earn a Crowned Victory Royale and unlock the Fortnite Crown Emote

If you win a match while wearing the Fortnite Victory Crown then that will count as a Crowned Victory Royale, which you can identify by the crown shown on top of #1 Victory Royale. The first time you do this you'll unlock the Fortnite Crown Emote, aka Crowning Achievement, which reveals how many Crowned Victory Royales you've accomplished whenever you activate it. Note that this functions as a standard emote, so you'll need to add it to your emote wheel in your locker unless you want to search through the menus each time to activate it.