Competitive gunfights, skillful building battles, and regular updates to the world have made Fortnite one of the most popular battle royale games out there. For many, the title has evolved from just another shooter to a secondary world where you hang out with your friends and watch live events and Party Royale concerts as a group.
Fortnite fashion has become important to a lot of people who want to show off the latest seasonal skins and other cosmetic items to friends instead of looking basic with default or old gear. But not everyone can afford all the V-Bucks you need to stay trendy.
With the holidays coming up, now’s the time to think about sending some Fortnite swag to your friends. But there are some hoops that Epic Games makes you jump through before you can send your squadmates anything. Here’s what you need to know.
Further reading
- Physical Fortnite gifts for the fans in your life
- The best weapons in Fortnite
- How to play split-screen in Fortnite
How to send gifts
Giving gifts in Fortnite is a great way to show your appreciation for someone, celebrate their birthday or another holiday, and just make the game even more social. Thankfully, it is rather easy to pull off, too, if you know how.
Players who want to send a gift must head to the item shop. Epic Games rotates out the different cosmetic items you can buy daily. Select one of these items and make sure you have the required number of V-Bucks. If not, you’ll need to add some more to your account first.
When you go to buy the item, select the “Buy as a Gift” option, and you can send it to someone else. Select the friend that you wish to send it to from your friends list, choose the wrapping paper you like for the gift box, and hit Send. Your friend will get a notification that they have a present to unlock once they log into Fortnite themselves.
Gifting restrictions
Once you’ve been playing Fortnite for a while, and have built up your community of friends and a bank of V-Bucks, gifting is simple. But Epic Games has put some important restrictions in place to thwart account hackers and money laundering. Here are the rules you need to know.
Activate two-factor authentication first: Once you pick an item to gift, Fortnite won’t let you proceed any further until you have 2FA activated. Click the Enable 2FA Now button, and Epic will take you to a browser and automatically log you into your account settings. There, you can either download the Authenticator app for security codes or set up your phone number or email for authentication.
You must be level 2: You can’t simply create a Fortnite account just to gift your Fortnite-loving friends with skins. You’ll need to have played a game or two first.
You must be friends with the recipient: Before you can gift to someone, you must send them a friend request, have them accept it, and then wait two or three days before you’ll be allowed to send them anything. This prevents hackers from breaking into your account and gifting a bunch of items to a stranger’s account before you can boot them out.
There’s a five gifts/day maximum: Unfortunately, you can’t give out too many gifts per day, even if you’re wearing the Santa Claus skin.
No gifting for iOS users: You can still play Fortnite on your iPhone or on your Mac computer, but gifting is one of the many features restricted on iOS iPadOS. Only PC, Android, Xbox One, PS4, and Switch players will have the option.
No gifting your personal locker items: They must be freshly purchased from the item shop.
Gifts aren’t refundable: Once you hit send, your V-Bucks wallet will instantly have the balance withdrawn from it, and there’s no way to cancel the transaction.
You can only gift Battle Pass with “real” money: Unlike skins and other items, Battle Passes can only be found and bought in the Battle Pass menu. There, you’ll see an option to gift one to your friends in the top left of the menu for 950 V-Bucks. However, you can’t use your current V-Buck balance to buy one, so you essentially need to just pay $9.50 out of pocket. Otherwise, the process is the same: Pick a friend from your friends list, choose a wrapping color, and hit send.
It is also worth keeping in mind that Epic Games frequently disables the gifting feature for extended periods of time. If you don’t see the gift option, it isn’t available currently, so your only option will be to send your friend a V-Bucks gift card.
Perhaps the most important thing to consider is that Epic frequently cycles items in and out of the store, and current store items are the only things you can buy or gift. You may want to wait until late December to surprise your friend with some Christmas cheer, but you won’t know until that day whether any particularly cool skins are available in the Item Shop. There’s also no scheduled delivery option.
So if you know your friend is fond of a particular character and see it available, don’t wait: Gift it early and let them know they’re not getting anything else!
As you can see, there are a lot of requirements in order to actually give a present to someone in Fortnite, so make sure that you meet all of them before you spend your hard-earned V-Bucks in the item shop. Also, double-check to make sure you’re sending a gift to the correct friend — this process is not something reversible.