Fortnite adds competitive Solo Showdown mode for limited time

Fortnite's latest limited time mode, Solo Showdown, doesn't actually change any of the battle royale shooter's rules, unlike all the other temporary modes we've seen. Instead, it's basically a competitive mode: you'll play against "other self-selected competitors" and be placed on a leaderboard that ranks players based on their performance in their first 50 games. The top players will win prizes—the idea is that people will take it more seriously than the regular solo queue.

The top 100 will be rewarded with various levels of V-bucks, the in-game currency, when the mode ends on Monday, May 21. If you're placed 51 through 100, you'll get 7,500, which will normally set you back $60.

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Place between 50 and 5 and you'll get 13,500 V-bucks, while fourth, third and second place get 25,000 and the winner gets a whopping 50,000. Don't get too excited, though: remember, this is a ranking of everyone that plays at least 50 matches in the mode. You have to be 16 or older to win a prize, too.

Announcing the mode, Epic Games said it's "using the Solo Showdown as a one-off stepping stone to learn how to build great events for all types of players", and promised a "major announcement about competitive play next week".

The mode is live now. The full rules are here.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.