Fortnite Default Skins Explained: All 26 Recruits and the 14 You Can Pick

A Fortnite default skin is any of the "Recruit" outfits the game assigns when you own nothing else, and there are 26 of them in the cosmetics API once duplicates are removed: eight from Chapter 1 Season 1, eight added for Chapter 2 Season 1 and ten more in Chapter 2 Season 4. Every one is filed as Common, every one is described as a "standard issue combatant outfit", and none has ever been sold. This guide names them, dates them and explains the three things people usually get wrong — that defaults have official names, that Jonesy is a default, and that a default means a new player.

What "default" means in Fortnite

A default is a Common-tier outfit called Recruit, and Common is the only tier that has never appeared in the Item Shop. The full Fortnite skins catalog lists far more Common entries than there are defaults, but most of those are variants and special-mode bodies; the wearable defaults are the 26 Recruits. Until Chapter 5 the game picked one at random each match. Since then you can choose which one you spawn as from the Locker — Outfit, then Edit Styles — from a list of fourteen named models, or leave it on random.

The word has a second meaning in the community: a "default" is a player who does not own skins, and by extension a beginner. That is why the sight of a Recruit in a lobby makes people relax, and why some very good players wear the cheapest Uncommon outfits instead — the sweaty skins guide explains the logic. But a default is not a skill level. Plenty of players run the default on purpose, and the named-model system was added precisely because people wanted to.

The eight Chapter 1 originals

The original eight defaults are ids CID_001 through CID_008 in the API — four female models, four male — introduced in Chapter 1 Season 1 in October 2017 and still in the game. Epic has never named them in Battle Royale; the names the community uses come from the Save the World heroes the models were borrowed from. Jonesy, Ramirez, Headhunter and Spitfire are the ones most people know; Renegade, Hawk, Banshee and Wildcat complete the set in the usual telling, though the mapping of names to ids has never been confirmed by Epic and varies between fan wikis. Treat the names as nicknames, not labels.

The Chapter 1 originals

CommonC1 · S1

CommonC1 · S1

The originals matter because so much of the early catalog is built on them. Ghoul Trooper is the default body with green skin. Renegade Raider is a default with a beanie and a different jacket. The Uncommon tier's cheapest outfits were, for the first two seasons, mostly re-dressed Recruits, which is why an 800-V-Bucks outfit and a default share a silhouette.

The Chapter 2 rebirth defaults

Chapter 2 Season 1, in October 2019, shipped eight new default models — CID_556 to CID_563, again four and four — with a more varied set of faces and body shapes than the 2017 originals, and Chapter 2 Season 4 added ten more (CID_873 to CID_882) in December 2020. That is where the number 26 comes from: eight plus eight plus ten. From then on new players could spawn as eighteen different people, and the old joke that every default was Jonesy stopped being true.

Chapter 2 defaults

CommonC2 · S1

CommonC2 · S4

The fourteen named defaults you can choose today

Since Chapter 5 the selectable defaults have names, and the list is fourteen long: Emmy, Amy, Melody, Ramirez, Simone, Lena, Jo, Jonesy, Aiden, Cyrus, Elias, Jonah, Robbie and Liam. The list was documented in December 2024 and has not changed as of September 2026. Headhunter, the most famous of the original nicknames after Jonesy, is not on it — Epic's selectable set is drawn from the newer models, with Jonesy and Ramirez the only two names carried over from Chapter 1.

To pick one, open the Locker, select the Outfit slot while wearing no outfit, and use Edit Styles; the same menu offers a randomise option that restores the old behaviour. The choice is cosmetic and free. It is also the answer to "black default skin", a search that comes up often: several of the fourteen named models are Black characters, and choosing one is a style selection rather than a purchase.

Jonesy the default versus Jonesy the outfit

Jonesy is a default model, a nickname and a family of paid outfits, and the three get confused. The default Jonesy is CID_005 in the originals and a named model in the selectable list. The paid Jonesys are separate outfits with their own tiers and seasons: Bunker Jonesy (Epic, Season 9), Slurp Jonesy (Slurp Series, Chapter 2 Season 2), Relaxed Fit Jonesy (Rare, Chapter 2 Season 3), Castaway Jonesy (Uncommon, same season), Cozy Jonesy (Uncommon, Chapter 2 Season 5) and Championship Jonesy (Uncommon, Chapter 4). None of them is a default.

The most useful of the family for anyone who wants the Chapter 1 look with a name attached is Jonesy The First, an Uncommon outfit sold in Chapter 2 Season 4 in November 2020 at the 800-V-Bucks price. Vintage Ramirez and Headhunter Prime arrived on the same day at the same price. They are faithful re-creations of three of the eight originals, and because they are shop outfits they can return.

The shop re-creations, Chapter 2 Season 4

UncommonC2 · S4

UncommonC2 · S4

UncommonC2 · S4

Why defaults keep coming back in the catalog

Defaults are the base bodies of the catalog, and the API shows it: of its Common entries, the 26 Recruits are the ones you can wear, plus mannequins and mode-specific bodies we exclude from counts. Every time Epic re-uses a default body for a cheap outfit — Nog Ops, Aura, Crystal — the tier ladder above the defaults gets a new entry that costs 800 V-Bucks and looks like a Recruit at range. That is the entire reason the plainest outfits in the game are the ones competitive players buy.

If you want to see how the defaults sit against the rest of the game's tiers, the rarity tiers guide is the next page; if you just want to know what an 800-V-Bucks outfit costs in dollars after the March 2026 bundle change, the V-Bucks pricing guide has the maths.