Saints Row: The Third challenges guide

Wheelie Distance

3048/3048 Meters

The best place to get this is to take a Kenshin or equally fast bike to the airport and burn up and down the runway while pulling back on the left stick to bring the front wheel up and pull a wheelie. The airport offers the most wide open area without the worry of any traffic interrupting your run.

Decker Specialists Killed

50/50 Killed

Much like the “destroy 25 tanks” challenge, go to a Decker controlled territory that you HAVE NOT taken full control of. Cause a ruckus to bring out the Decker’s and SWAT and grab the tank when it arrives. Start using it to destroy Decker vehicles and soon enough they will start bringing out the rollerblading girls with the hammers. Unlike the other specialists, these usually come in pairs on the back of cars, so using the tank to destroy the car they are behind will take out two at a time, allowing you to get this challenge rather quickly. If you have already taken over all Decker territories, you can go to a Mayhem Activity in the territory and go nuts until the specialists arrive and kill them there.

Luchadore Specialists Killed

50/50 Killed

Much like the “destroy 25 tanks” challenge, go to a Luchadore controlled territory that you HAVE NOT taken full control of. Destroy everything in sight to bring out the Luchadore’s and SWAT and grab the tank when it arrives. Start using it to destroy the gang vehicles and soon enough they will start bringing out the grenade tossing enemies. Kill them when they appear and more and more will start to arrive. If you have already taken over all Luchadore territories, you can go to a Mayhem Activity in the territory and go nuts until the specialists arrive and kill them there.

Morningstar Specialists Killed

50/50 Killed

Much like the “destroy 25 tanks” challenge, go to a Morningstar controlled territory that you HAVE NOT taken full control of. Cause a ruckus enough to 4 star the gang and the cops and they will start to bring out the choppers. The specialists are the bald snipers that arrive in the Morningstar helicopters, making them the slowest of all the specialists to get competed. If you have already taken over all Morningstar territories, you can go to a Mayhem Activity in the territory and go nuts until the specialists arrive and kill them there.

Car Torpedo Damage

2000/2000 Dollars

For this challenge, you need to drive your car and then press Y/Triangle to leap out and send the car careening into whatever is in front of it. The quickest way I found to hit 2000 was to grab a fast car like a Temptress or Raycaster and then find a street lined with paper boxes and bus stops. Drive past them and then turn and line them up. Drive full tilt towards them and leap out at the last second. The indicator for how much damage you’ve done comes up in percentages for some reason, so you’ll need to check the challenges page to see how close you are to completing it. By hitting multiple objects in on run, you’ll complete the challenge in no time.

Near Misses

500/500

This challenge will likely be completed during the campaign by driving and flying. Each time you narrowly miss hitting a car, person, or building, you will get a near miss indicator in the top right corner. If you need to boost it every once in a while, you can head to the freeway and drive close to the cars there, as well as grab a VTOL and buzz past the buildings downtown.

Vehicle Mod Spending

20,000/20,000 Dollars

This challenge is a rather easy one and can be done anytime you have twenty grand to spare. Go to a Rim Jobs with a lot of cars in your garage and start upgrading any and everything you can on each car, starting with the engines, tires, and so forth, to get the most expensive items out of the way. DO it to a few cars and you’ll hit twenty thousand spent fast enough.

Human Shields Used

150/150 People

If you use human shields a lot during the course of the game, then you won’t need to worry about this challenge. If you rarely used them, then you’ll need to head some place like downtown where there are lots of people and start running up to people and press Y/Triangle to grab them. Press Y/Triangle again to toss them and then immediately move to the next person. Rinse and repeat until you ding 150.

Two Wheel Distance

762/762 Meters

A lot of this challenge will be completed during power slides, but for the remainder of the challenge, you can take a car to the freeway and drive halfway up on to the barrier that line that sides. If you drive too fast, you can get struck on it or even drive right over it, so get two wheels up on the barricade and then take your time driving across the highway. It will only take a few times to complete the challenge this way.

Multi-Kills

500/500

If you are following the “destroy 25 tanks” method for the other challenges, then this will come along with it. If not, go piss off a lot of cops for a tank to show up, take it and shoot at everything in sight. Almost every time you hit a vehicle it will be a multikill and with the wide AOE of the tanks artillery, almost every shot towards two people will be a multikill as well.

Basejumps Nailed

15/15 Landings

Base jumps are a pain in the ass, to be frank. When you jump out of a plane or helicopter, or jump off a high building, you can pull out your chute and then press Y/Triangle to set a marker on the ground to land in. Go to the airport and in the northeast corner there are two helicopter pads. Grab the copter on the right and take it up to about 8 seconds in the air. When you jump out, and chute and place the basejump marker, it should be around 80 meters below you. This height was the easiest for me to nail it each and every time. Land in the marker, anywhere inside the lights, and it will count. If your helicopter didn’t survive the fall- sometimes it does- run back up the stairs to the helipad and another should have spawned by now for you to take up again. 14 more times and you can get this challenge out of the way.

No-Weapon Kills

25/25 Kills

This is one of the rather simple challenges to get. All you need to do is run up to 25 people without a weapon in hand (no Guns, no Penetrators, no Apoca-fists) and punch 25 people to death. If they go down and don’t die, stand over them and attack to stomp on them to finish them off.

Stoppie Distance

305/305 Meters

This is another one of the more easy challenges. Grab a motorbike or scooter and head to the airport runways. Once there, get up to full speed and then slam on the brakes with the left trigger and push forward on the left stick to raise the back end of the bike. Continue rolling back and forth along the run way and you’ll nab this easily in no time.

STAG Commandos Killed

25/25 Killed

During the campaign, after STAG has arrived and before the end of the campaign, is when you need to get this challenge. Cause a ruckus enough for STAG to arrive and get it to level 5 for the commandos to show up. If you want to bring the fight to them, head to Sunset Park in the Northeast corner and go nuts to bring them running immediately. If you try to do this once the game is completed, STAG won’t show up, just the SWAT and cops will.

Compliments Paid

50/50 Compliments

There are no rules for the targets for this challenge thankfully. Simply walk up to 50 different people, civilians or Saints gang members and press right on the D-Pad to pay the person a compliment. Do it 50 times and you’re done with this.

Distance Travelled

762,000/762,000 Meters

This will take a dang long time to get. Even with all the driving of the campaign, it will take some additional driving afterwards to nail the full total. One way to help increase the distance travelled is to hop in the VTOL and simply fly back and forth over the city. Once you hit the far side, the VTOL will turn around automatically and head the opposite direction, allowing you to not even worry about having to control it, or even pay attention to it.

EMU’s Destroyed

50/50 Emus

Emu’s are the tiny Smart Car type vehicles that you’ll see driving around every once in a while. One way to destroy 50 of them rather quickly is nab one and then bring it to your garage at the HQ. Pull it out and then drive a couple feet and hop out. Blow it up and repeat. Another way is to wait for later in the game when the gang of mascots attack during a survival cellphone call. The mascots will arrive in both Emu’s and golf carts giving you plenty to destroy to reach fifty.

Gang Ops Defeated

32/32 Gangs

There are 32 gang operations throughout the city of Steelport and to take over each part of the city, you’ll need to defeat each in the various territories. If you haven’t found all of them, look for the grey areas of the map and the map legend will tell you how many there are left to find. Once you have found them all, you can defeat them insanely easy by just having the VTOL fire a burst of missiles at them from the air.

Survival Completed

26/26 All Waves

This is easily one of the more time consuming challenges. Each time your cell phone rings, you’ll have the opportunity to complete a survival challenge. You’ll need answer the phone and then head to the location. There are two types of challenges; wave based where you need to kill a set amount of enemies per wave and wave based where each wave is time based and you need to survive long enough to make it to the end. You will only receive the phone calls while you are outside of a vehicle and walking.

Kill Brutes

30/30 Brutes

Just like the “destroy 25 tanks” challenge, piss off enough cops and gang members so that the tanks start rolling in. Hijack a tank and then use it to destroy everything in sight. During the rush of enemies that will continually appear, there will be a load of Brutes that arrive. Also using the tank, you can destroy their truck before they even get out making it all that much easier.

Headshots

500/500 Headshots

Depending on how good your aim is, you may or may not need a lot to finish off this challenge by the time the main campaign ends. Either way, you can head to Arapice Island and climb on top of a car or a crate and let the zombie swarm all around you. Simply shoot downwards and chances are you’ll always hit their heads. Let another group form up and rinse and repeat until you hit 500.

Congratulations, you've completed all of the Saints Row: The Third challenges!

Jeff McAllister is a freelance journalist who has contributed to GamesRadar+ over the years. You'll typically find his byline associated with deep-dive guides that are designed to help you scoop up collectibles and find hidden treasures in some of the biggest action and RPG games out there. Be sure to give Jeff a thanks in the comments while you're completing all of those tricky Achievements and Trophies.