Fortnite's Solo Showdown mode offers prizes to the best of the best

It's been just about eight months since Fortnite's Battle Royale mode launched, and in that time, plenty of players have become astoundingly good at the game. Fortnite doesn't offer anything like a ranked ladder for people who are looking to try hard in a competitive mode, but that all changes this week (at least temporarily). Epic today announced the next limited-time game mode for Fortnite, and it's called Solo Showdown.

As you can probably guess from the name, Solo Showdown will be an every-man-for-himself mode that's inaccessible to players queuing as duos or squads. Gameplay for Solo Showdown will be identical to the standard solo mode, which means that there won't any of the tweaks to drops or new rules we typically see in other limited-time game modes.

You'll want to be on your game if you're going to enter Solo Showdown, because you'll be scored on your performance in each game you play. Finishing first in a match will earn you a full 100 point, which drops all the way down to just 25 points for places 76 to 100. As with any good ranked mode, there will be a leaderboard players can check to see how they stack up against the competition, and once the game mode ends next week, Epic will hand out rewards to the top 100 players.

First place will net a whopping 50,000 V-Bucks, which is enough to buy quite a few skins from Fortnite's shop. The prizes for the rest of the top 100 aren't anything to stick your nose up at, either: 2nd-4th place will get 25,000 V-Bucks, 5th-50th will get 13,500, and 51st-100th will get 7,500. You'll need to play 50 Solo Showdown games to be eligible for a prize, and in an effort to make sure people can't game the system by queuing into matches they repeatedly lose immediately, only those 50 games will be counted.

So, if you think you're a good Fortnite player, this is your chance to prove it and possibly earn some in-game cash for your effort. Solo Showdown begins today and ends on May 21, 2018 at 10 AM Eastern, with Epic saying that more information about competitive play will be coming next week. If you're interested in participating, you can read the full rules over on Fortnite's official website.