Skip to main content

Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Fortnite Ruin skin: How to unlock Ruin, Ruin pickaxe and back bling

How to unlock the Ruin skin and its accessories in Fortnite.

Fortnite's Ruin is a skin that unlocks as part of the Discovery secret Battle Star locations.

Teased weeks ahead of the skin's launch, signs suggest Ruin will have a large part to play in Fortnite Season 8's story.

There is a chance Ruin will also have additional styles to unlock, not unlike The Prisoner before it.


Note this particular challenge is no longer able to be completed. What's new? Chapter 4 Season 2 has arrived! New additions include the Grind Rails and Kinetic Blades, along with the new Battle Pass, character collection and Eren Jaeger skin. It's a good idea to know how to get XP fast in Fortnite.


How to unlock Ruin, Ruin's pickaxe and Ruin's back bling in Fortnite

To unlock Ruin in Fortnite, you need to complete 55 Weekly Challenges throughout Season 8.

You can see your progress as part of the Discovery secret Battle Star locations screen.

Once done, you have a series of Ruin Challenges to complete. Here's a summary of the Ruin unlocks:

  • How to unlock the Ruin skin: Complete 55 weekly Challenges in Season 8
  • How to unlock Ruin's back bling: Complete any three Ruin challenges
  • How to unlock Ruin's pickaxe: Complete any six Ruin challenges

The Ruin challenges are as follows (thanks to jaleach2005 on reddit for revealing these early):

  • Destroy trees (5 total)
  • Destroy rocks (35 total)
  • Destroy cars, trucks or RVs (20 total)
  • Deal damage to opponent structures (10,000 total)
  • Outlast Opponents (1000 total)
  • Complete Daily Challenges (5 total)

As with previous Fortnite reward skins, you only have until the end of Season 8 to unlock Ruin, so make sure you get round to them before end rolls around.


Fortnite Chapter 5 Season 1 is here! It brings a free Lego Insider skin and redemption codes with it, along with a new Victory Umbrella. We've also got pages on new features like Medallions, Weapon Mods, and how to complete a Train Heist. Meanwhile, learn what the best weapons are in the current season, how to get XP fast, and what the best PC settings are to help earn a Victory Crown.


What we know about Ruin in Fortnite so far

Ruin was teased very early compared to previous reward skins in Fortnite, suggesting Ruin has a large part to play in the story, in the same way the Ice King became a large part of the story some time ahead of the end of Season 7.

The arrival of Ruin could be tied to the appearance of more lava across the map at the excavation site at Dusty Divot - especially with Ruin's molten appearance.

Watch on YouTube

In the above video, Hollow guesses that the lava will fill up the entirety of Dusty Divot to revert the named location to a flat plane. Could Ruin emerge from here in the process?

Meanwhile, a helicopter has slowly been circling the map (thanks, Seawod on reddit). Most recently it's ended up at Loot Lake, suggesting a point of interest in that area.

This then resulted in a vault of sources appearing in the middle of Loot Lake (thanks to FlaminGummy on reddit for discovering this first). Could this be related to the arrival of Ruin in the game's story?

The vault at Loot Lake. Image credit: FlaminGummy on reddit

Now we have a possible focal point for Ruin's debut - nothing concrete, but something to go on.