Fortnite Ranked Mode Confirmed, First Details Revealed

By Tanner Dedmon

Fortnite's Competitive scene is finally evolving to include a Ranked mode soon, Epic Games announced this week. Fortnite's new Ranked playlist will include an option for players to play in the traditional battle royale environment as well as the Zero Build mode with different options enabled for various group sizes, too, including Solo, Duos, and Squads. As is the case with any worthwhile ranked mode in a game, rewards will also be offered to players at the end of each ranked season depending on how far along players progressed through the ranks.

A teaser for this Ranked mode dropped on Friday with a quick teaser trailer showing off what certainly looked to be different emblems one might find to represent different ranks in a mode such as this one. The full reveal shared on Saturday confirmed that the ranks will be Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum, Diamond, Elite, Champion, and Unreal. Three different sub-ranks will exist in Bronze through Diamond (so you could be Bronze III, Diamond II, Gold I, and so on) while Elite, Champion, and Unreal all have just one rank for players to move through.

The exact scoring system hasn't been detailed, so it's unclear how certain actions are weighted against one another, but in typical battle royale fashion, the focus is on eliminating players and placing highly. Eliminations earned later on in the match count more than ones earned earlier, and if you eliminate someone who's a higher rank than you, you'll earn more for that action. Solo, Duos, and Squads will be supported in the normal battle royale mode while Zero Build will only support Duos. Team-based matchmaking operates by matching players based on the highest rank owned by any one player in a team, so be prepared for some touch matches if you're banking on your Diamond friend carrying you.

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Interestingly enough, Ranked rewards will work a bit differently in Fortnite's version of the competitive environment. In each Ranked match, players will get a "Ranked Urgent Quest" which awards them with seasonal cosmetics upon completion. The final cosmetic reward for Ranked Season Zero is the Burn Bright emote which shows off your rank. Quests like these are usually not specific to ranked modes in other games given that they may alter playstyles and encourage atypical behavior in a mode where players are trying their best to win or place highly, so we'll have to wait and see what kinds of quests are given out in Ranked to see how well they fit into the more competitive mode.

For the high-level players, this Ranked mode will also affect eligibility in future FNCS competitions since your earned rank will be a factor, but for all others, this'll just be a way to try out a more competitive version of Fortnite by yourself or with others.

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