Over the course of it's 30+ seasons, MTV's The Challenge has continually come up with bigger, badder, more creative, and more memorable daily competitions for the players to compete in. Some of the concepts behind these challenges have fallen flat, but many of them have been game-changers for the long-running reality franchise.
In a series that has literally featured hundreds of different competitions, it's hard to say which ones are definitively the greatest, especially since the twists behind many of the challenges are so unique and strange. But here are 10 of the most memorable and best competitions ever featured on The Challenge.
Laps Of Judgment
This Rivals III competition didn't seem extraordinary or super memorable on it's face, but what made it stick out from the bunch was the strategy involved.
The competition involved the teams choosing between two different options in a series of different challenges, giving the players an unusual level of power in their game's fate as well as forcing them to assess their own skills accurately.
Airdrop Extraction
The Challenge has undoubtedly been upping the ante when it comes to competition, but what made this particular daily challenge extra fun is the titular airdrop element of the competition.
Transferring the crates from one end of the course to the other was grueling, but watching the competitors trying to aim and toss their crates from a flying helicopter on to a target on the ground was a unique and intense aspect of this challenge.
Under Siege
Sometimes the twists in particular daily challenges really don't work out well at all, and in other instances they are simple but strong game changers. Luckily, the strange twist for "Under Siege" brought a new element to the game that was both hilarious to watch and had a strong impact on the ability of the players to actually play the game.
Puzzles are always a bit of a wild card in challenges, but the playing field constantly swinging back and forth, sending the players flying, really added an interesting twist to the game.
Out On A Limb
Obviously one of the key elements of every Rivals challenge is creating competitions that forces rivals to work together and trust in each other. And no competition really captured that spirit more than Out On A Limb.
This competition where teams had to use large swinging poles high up in the air to get to progressively smaller and more difficult platforms was simple but scary, and really forced the competitors to show what they could bring to the table.
Day of Wreckoning
Many of the best daily challenges on The Challenge wind up being deceptively simple. This particular challenge is memorable because of Ninja Natalie's epic freakout on Turbo, blaming him for supposedly ruining their chances at the challenge that they actually wound up winning.
But her meltdown showed just how well-designed the challenge was, as bringing the heaviest item in the junkyard did their team more favors than carrying as many things as they could, showing how thinking through a challenge is often the key to winning.
Up All Night
In one of the quirkiest challenge ideas in all of Challenge history, this particular competition involved the Rivals III teams staying up all night, standing on a pillar with one another, as a series of bizarre occurrences happened throughout the night.
The players were not informed that they were going to be tested on the series of events later, but most of them figured it out anyway.
Eye In The Sky
Teamwork is something that can be make or break for any challenge or any game, and nothing proves that more clearly than this interesting challenge.
In this bizarre setup, teams of two are assigned with the task of traversing an elevated course, and one of the players is blindfolded while the other is wearing a virtual reality device that allows them to see from the perspective of the blindfolded player.
Opening Challenge
The very first challenge in Final Reckoning is also one of the best challenges in the show's history.
Although it unfairly puts all of the pressure on one member of a team, having that team member dig up a casket to discover who their partner was actually going to be for the duration of the season was a pretty clever twist to make the revelations even more exciting.
Gasping For Air
Vendettas was a pretty hardcore season of The Challenge, and this particular competition was extra terrifying for two reasons. One, it was a challenge that took place in the water. And two, it was a challenge that took place at night.
Unsurprisingly the players had an insanely difficult time completing this 150 foot swim from underwater air bubbles that provided them with oxygen, but the inventiveness and scare factor made this one really stick out.
Get Off The Rock
In recent years The Challenge has gone out of it's way to make it's daily competitions more extreme, and one of the most memorable new challenges was the first competition on Vendettas.
This race up the Rock of Gibraltar was more like something we'd see in a final, not in the first competition of the season, and it definitely tested the mettle of this season's crop of contestants.
