To excel on The Challenge, puzzles skills are essential, but you’d never know that by watching the trailers. Often (especially in the modern era), we see explosions, speeding cars, and cinematic stunts in those teasers, but these elements are only a piece of their corresponding daily challenge. Once we see the full competition, the game is hugely dependent on a puzzle.
To make this list, the daily challenges need to include a puzzle that’s one of the biggest elements used to determine its winner while the theatric visuals have minimal impact on the outcome. Likely, these competitions just exist to give the Challenge cool footage that will be used in promotional materials without impacting the game’s outcome.
10. Amazed (Vets & New Threats)
The visual of running into a maze made of shipping containers is pretty cool, and it brings up memories of Search & Destroy, a well-liked challenge from War of the Worlds. In actuality, this was just a maze to find a puzzle, and while the course was fairly long, the puzzle was the real differentiator in terms of time. As a viewer, you’re basically going to spend 30 minutes watching competitors scream at each other about numbers on a Sudoku.
9. Car Sick (All Stars 4)
Seeing an RV unwind and descend to the ground seemed like it could have been some wild, Road Rules-themed challenge, which would have been perfect for All Stars. Instead, this RV just took us on the road to a puzzle. It was an underwhelming end for such a cool clip from the trailer, but at least this competition leaned into old school nostalgia for some of the puzzle answers.
8. Working the Angles (Battle for a New Champion)
At first glance, this appeared to be a heights over water challenge, and it was probably the coolest visual this low-budget season gave us. Instead, it was just a task to recreate a puzzle key across two pyramids. The only extra element was swinging from one platform to another, but only a few people had to do that. Many competitors just stayed on the first platform because they were afraid to fall in the water or damage their nose jobs.
7. Highway to Hell (War of the Worlds)
This challenge strapped competitors on top of a spiky, dangerous looking car, which made the competition look intense. However, these apocalyptic elements were unnecessary because the game was just a puzzle that cast members had three minutes to solve. The car added speed, but not much else.
6. Submerged (Spies, Lies and Allies)
Putting cast members in a sinking plane sounds like a scene from an action movie, and it kind of was. This mission was inspired by Top Gun: Maverick, but unlike the film, it was all about a puzzle. Competitors just had to collect pieces inside and outside of the aircraft and assemble a puzzle, which doesn’t sound like the plot of a Tom Cruise movie.
5. Bomb Squad (Total Madness)
The only fun thing about this challenge was riding sideways in a stunt car, but then we learned people in the cars were just getting numbers to complete a math equation. The sensitive walkie-talkies made communicating to teammates hard, so some competitors didn’t even progress past this stage of the competition. Those who did were rewarded with more puzzles, just without the cool stunts.
4. Shooting for the Star (All Stars Rivals)
This competition forced competitors to drive an ATV off a cliff and touch as star, which basically every man could do. The only element that differentiated the final scores was the length of time it took to complete the puzzle. In fact, if the ATVs weren’t involved, hesitation to jump could have impacted the teams’ times. This challenge was very similar to the Fire Plunge challenge on Battle of the Eras, where competitors drove a convertible off the edge of a cliff, but that competition relied on swimming more than a puzzle.
3. Turning Agents (Spies, Lies and Allies)
As much as the season wanted to use the cars doing donuts in its trailer, the footage really amounted to nothing. Competitors atop the vehicle had to memorize symbols to open a case and cars just existed to make people feel dizzy. But by the end of the competition, viewers were the dizzy ones.
2. Side By Side (Vets & New Threats)
The idea of needing to go under a speeding car as it jumps over a pit seems cool, even if it was just to view an answer key. Of course, there was a fence to stop the Challengers from going directly under the vehicles. While this is a necessary safety precaution, it removes the illusion of danger from the game. Plus, the under-vehicle answer keys were basically useless because the puzzle mirrored itself and could be solved without any keys.
1. Crash Landing (War of the Worlds)
If you can remember seeing the War of the Worlds trailer in 2019, the idea of having an old airplane as part of a challenge was incredible. It signified an increase in the show’s budget, and it painted a picture that cooler things were ahead. Then, we just saw the cast complete a jigsaw puzzle in the plane. Competitors did need to jump out of the aircraft, which caused hesitation for some people, but the people who struggled in Crash Landing were only the ones who couldn’t do the puzzle.
Stop Being Polite 