All Fortnite Sidekicks: Complete Guide

Fortnite sidekicks are the AI companions you deploy mid-match to cover one specific job — healing, recon, suppression, or mobility — and the right pick is decided by your squad size, not by rarity: run a Support sidekick in solos and duos, where nobody is coming to revive you, and a Recon or Assault sidekick in trios and squads, where your team already covers healing. The named roster rotates with each season and patch, so the reliable way to shop for one is by archetype: know what each class does, what it costs to unlock, and how it behaves the moment it gets knocked.

What a sidekick actually is

A sidekick is a deployable AI companion that follows you for the length of a Battle Royale match, carries its own health pool, and offers one signature ability on a cooldown. It is not a second teammate. It does not loot, it does not revive you, and it cannot hold an angle the way a human player can. What it does well is compress one job into a single button press that still works when your squad is dead, split, or fighting somewhere else on the map.

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Because Epic retunes the roster every season, the names on your Locker screen change more often than the jobs do. The four archetypes below have stayed consistent, and every named sidekick in a given season maps onto one of them.

The four sidekick archetypes compared

The figures below are the typical ranges you will see across the current roster. Epic adjusts cooldowns and health values in balance patches, so treat the in-game tooltip as the authoritative number and this table as the comparison framework — per the game’s official patch notes, sidekick tuning is changed more often than almost any other Battle Royale system.

Two numbers matter more than the rest. Cooldown decides how often the sidekick is useful across a 20-minute match — a 25-second cooldown fires roughly 40 times in a full game, a 45-second cooldown roughly 25 times. Health decides whether it survives a single shotgun exchange, and the Assault archetype is the only one with enough of it to soak a full burst on purpose.

How you unlock sidekicks

• Season questline (free for everyone). Most sidekicks enter the game attached to a multi-stage quest chain. You finish it because the final step usually also hands over a style variant, and the quest chain is the only route that costs zero V-Bucks.
• Battle Pass tiers. Some sit on the free track, others on the premium track. Buy the pass only if you plan to reach the tier — a pass you abandon at tier 40 is worse value than a single shop purchase.
• Item shop bundles. Sidekicks rotate through the shop, often bundled with a matching outfit and wrap. Bundles are the cheapest way to get a full cosmetic set and the most expensive way to get the ability alone.
• Limited-time events. Event sidekicks usually return, but not on a published schedule. If one appears during an event you play, unlock it then — waiting for a rerun can mean a full year.

Cosmetic options: what you can actually change

Cosmetics never change stats. What you can customise, depending on the specific sidekick, is its body style, its colour or wrap treatment, its deploy and recall animations, and in some cases a back bling or emote pairing sold with it. Styles unlocked through quests are permanent; styles sold in bundles are not re-earnable if you skip them. If you care about matching a squad outfit, buy the bundle, because individual styles rarely return on their own.

Which sidekick to run: match the situation

What a sidekick really costs over a season

V-Bucks pricing is stable enough to do the maths. A 2,800 V-Bucks pack generally runs around $20–25 depending on platform and region, which works out to roughly $0.0075–$0.009 per V-Buck. A shop sidekick bundle priced at 1,800 V-Bucks therefore costs about $13.50–$16 in real money.

Now divide by how long you will actually use it. If you play five hours a week across a 12-week season, that is 60 hours — about $0.25 per hour of play. If you play two hours a week, the same purchase costs roughly $0.62 per hour, more than double. A single 1,200 V-Buck sidekick without the bundle lands near $0.17 per hour at five hours a week. The practical rule: if you cannot name the archetype you will run next season, buy the free-track sidekick and skip the bundle.

What wears out first: ownership realities

• The ability, not the skin. Your cosmetic is permanent in your Locker, but combat tuning and availability change every season. A sidekick that was the strongest pick in one season can become a cosmetic-only item the next.
• Refund tokens are finite. Accounts get a small, limited number of lifetime refund tokens, and Battle Pass rewards cannot be refunded at all. Spend the token on a 1,800 V-Buck bundle, not on a 200 V-Buck emote.
• Common mistake: deploying in the open. Sidekicks have no self-preservation. Deploy behind cover or a build, because a sidekick on cooldown is the same as no sidekick.
• Common mistake: treating it as a teammate. Players push because they feel like a duo. You are still solo — the sidekick adds one ability, not a second gun.
• Common mistake: stacking duplicates. In a squad, two of the same archetype wastes a slot. Assign roles before the drop, not during the third circle.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are Fortnite sidekicks free?

Some are. The free Battle Pass track and season questlines regularly hand over at least one sidekick at no V-Bucks cost. Premium sidekicks and full cosmetic bundles sit in the item shop, usually in the 1,200–2,000 V-Bucks range. You can play a full season with a competitive sidekick without spending anything.

Can you have more than one sidekick at a time?

No. You equip one sidekick per loadout and deploy it once you are on the ground. Switching mid-match is not possible, which is why the choice matters more than the collection — pick for the map and mode you are dropping into, not for the one you used last season.

Do sidekicks count as teammates in duos and squads?

They do not. Matchmaking still treats you as a solo or as part of your human squad, and sidekicks cannot be revived by teammates or revive you. Their value is the ability they provide, not a fourth body in the fight.

Do sidekick cosmetics change their abilities?

No. Styles, wraps and animations are purely visual, per Epic’s own descriptions of the system. An alternate colourway of a Support sidekick heals exactly the same amount as the default version.

What happens when your sidekick is knocked down?

It goes down, stops providing its ability, and typically returns after a set respawn timer or when you redeploy from a fresh slot. Because its health is lower than a player’s, it will usually be the first thing to drop in a close-range fight — plan your push around its cooldown rather than assuming it will survive the exchange.

Do sidekicks carry over between seasons?

The cosmetic does; the combat tuning does not. Your Locker keeps the sidekick permanently, but Epic rebalances abilities and can vault specific ones when a new season starts. If a sidekick you own suddenly feels different, check the current patch notes before assuming you misremember how it played.