The Challenge: Vendettas is the 31st season of MTV reality competition series, The Challenge. For the first time, this season featured alumni from the US version of Big Brother, and the UK TV shows Ex on the Beach and Geordie Shore, competing with alumni from The Real World, Road Rules, The Challenge, and Are You the One?. For the first time ever, there was only one winner.
Format
28 players – each with unresolved grudges with other contestants – compete to survive in the game and win their share of $500,000. Each round is designated as a male, female or genderless round. The main elements of the game are as follows:
Daily Missions: Each round, the players compete in a challenge. The challenges vary between individual and team challenges. The winners split $25,000 for their individual bank accounts. In an individual challenge, the three best performers in the challenge form the Troika, while the worst-performer of the designated gender is nominated for elimination. In team challenges, the winning team elects the Troika among themselves, while the losing team must vote immediately and publicly for a teammate of the designated gender to face elimination. Troika & Inquisition: The three players in the Troika are immune from entering the Elimination Round. They nominate three players of the designated gender for the Elimination Round. The nominees face the "Inquisition", where they have the chance to plead their case to the Troika as to why they should not be voted-in to the Elimination Round. Elimination Rounds (The Ring): In "The Ring", the Troika votes for one of the players who faced the Inquisition to compete in the Elimination Round. The winners stay in the game, and earn a "Grenade". Grenades hold power that can be used on any other player by the elimination winner. The losers of the elimination round go home, and their individual bank accounts total is added to the final prize fund.
When eight players remain, they compete individually in the Final Challenge for their share of the $500,000 prize. Only the Top 4 players win the money in their bank account. Additionally, first place is awarded the money from the bank accounts of every eliminated player as well as an additional $150,000. Second place receives an additional $35,000, third place an additional $10,000 and the fourth place an additional $5,000. The other four finalists receive nothing.
Twists Purges: Some challenges are designated as Purges, where the worst competitors are immediately eliminated. In the opening "Get Off the Rock" challenge, the worst-performing male and female are eliminated. In the "Help Me, Rhonda" challenge, the worst-performing male and female are eliminated. Due to uneven ratio of Males to Females, the "Outside the Box" challenge is also a Male Purge, with the worst-finishing male being eliminated. Mercenaries: For some of the Elimination Rounds, the nominated players face the Mercenaries instead of each other. The Mercenaries are experienced veterans, returning to The Challenge for a one-off challenge. Mercenary rounds occur during rounds that feature both a male and female elimination. A player winning against the Mercenary stays in the game, losing against the Mercenary eliminates the player. This means that all four or none of the nominated players could be eliminated depending on the results of each test. In the "Crazy 8" Elimination Round, the female nominees would face either Aneesa Ferreira or Tori Deal. The male nominees would face either Derrick Kosinski or Jordan Wiseley. In the "Yankin' My Chain" challenge, the female nominees would face either Ashley Mitchell or Laurel Stucky. The male nominees face either Darrell Taylor or Frank Sweeney.
Contestants Male contestants Original season Finish Zach Nichols The Real World: San Diego (2011) Runner-up Kyle ChristieGeordie Shore 8Third place Leroy Garrett The Real World: Las Vegas (2011)Finalist Tony Raines Real World: SkeletonsFinalist Brad FiorenzaThe Real World: San Diego (2004) Episode 13 Nelson ThomasAre You the One? 3 Episode 13 Devin Walker-MolaghanAre You the One? 3Episode 13Johnny "Bananas" DevenanzioThe Real World: Key WestEpisode 10 Joss MooneyEx on the Beach UK 1Episode 8 Shane Landrum Road Rules: Campus CrawlEpisode 7 Victor ArroyoBig Brother 18Episode 7 Cory WhartonReal World: Ex-Plosion Episode 3 Eddie WilliamsAre You the One? 5Episode 2 Rogan O'ConnorEx on the Beach UK 2Episode 1 Female contestants Original season FinishCara Maria SorbelloThe Challenge: Fresh Meat IIWinner Kailah CasillasReal World: Go Big or Go HomeFourth place Kam WilliamsAre You the One? 5Finalist Nicole ZanattaReal World: SkeletonsFinalist Jemmye CarrollThe Real World: New Orleans (2010)Episode 13 Natalie NegrottiBig Brother 18 Episode 12 Britni Thornton Are You the One? 3 Episode 11 Kayleigh MorrisEx on the Beach UK 2Episode 10 Marie RodaThe Real World: St. ThomasEpisode 9 Veronica PortilloRoad Rules: Semester at SeaEpisode 7/8 Sylvia ElsrodeReal World: SkeletonsEpisode 7Melissa ReevesEx on the Beach UK 2Episode 5 Alicia WrightAre You the One? 5Episode 4 Nicole RamosThe Challenge: Battle of the BloodlinesEpisode 1
Mercenaries Mercenaries Original season Aneesa FerreiraThe Real World: Chicago Ashley Mitchell Real World: Ex-Plosion Darrell TaylorRoad Rules: Campus CrawlDerrick Kosinski Road Rules: X-TremeFrank SweeneyThe Real World: San Diego (2011) Jordan Wiseley The Real World: Portland Laurel Stucky The Challenge: Fresh Meat II Tori Deal Are You the One? 4
Gameplay Challenge games Get Off the Rock: This purge challenge is an overnight endurance race up the 1400-foot Rock of Gibraltar. For the first phase, contestants race through the streets of Gibraltar to a checkpoint in tunnels at the base of the rock, where they then must stand in a subway car overnight holding weighted boxes. The following day, players continue the race up the Rock of Gibraltar with staggered starts based on how they finished the first phase. The first-place finisher wins $25,000, while the slowest male and female contestants are immediately eliminated. Winner: Joss Eliminated: Nicole R. & Rogan Who's Got Balls?: Played in two heats, male and female, contestants must dive into a soapy pit and retrieve soccer balls, pull themselves back out of the pit using ropes, and deposit the balls into their respective bin. The first contestant to deposit three balls into their bin wins. Winners: Bananas & Britni #Vendettas: Played on a giant hashtag structure lifted above water, this challenge is played in heats separated by gender. Contestants must take their 4 "hashtag" figures, and place them onto 4 separate opponents' poles. The fastest male and female to place their hashtags on their opponents' poles and make it back to their own pole win the challenge. Winners: Devin & Natalie Food Wars: Contestants are divided into 7 teams of 3 and 1 team of 2. At the beginning of each round, they are asked a question, and the first team to buzz in is allowed to answer. If they get it right, they win that question and will then be able to select one other team to be safe from eating while every other team has to select a member to consume a food of the winning choosing team's choosing. If the members of the eating team are unable to finish their dish in the allotted time, their team is eliminated. The final round between the final two teams is an eating competition, with the first team to finish the dish winning. Winners: Marie, Tony & Zach Gasping for Air: Played at night, contestants are divided into 4 teams. Each contestant takes a turn diving underwater down 15 feet, and then moving a metal ring along a rope stretched 150 feet underwater. There are three checkpoint stations for the contestants to stop and breathe out of oxygen tanks while underwater. The team that moves their rings the overall longest distance wins. Winners: Bananas, Kailah, Kyle, Tony & Zach Puppet Master: Contestants are split into two teams and are chained together in one long chain. While chained together, contestants must work together to assemble pieces of a giant puppet together (with Aneesa and CT heads). The first team to do so, and pull the rope raising their puppet, wins. Winners: Bananas, Brad, Cara Maria, Jemmye, Kayleigh, Kyle, Natalie, Nicole Z., Shane & Tony Car Crash: This challenge entails five cars that are lifting into the air over water and are being sprayed with water. Contestants are separated into 4 teams. Each member of the team must jump from car to car, going through the backseat once completing the jump. The team with the fastest contestant to complete the jumps wins. Winners: Bananas, Cara Maria, Natalie & Nelson Kicking Ass: Contestants are divided into two teams and are playing a game of soccer. However, they will be playing on pogo stilts while in giant plastic bubbles. The first team to score two goals on their opponents wins. Winners: Brad, Kailah, Kam, Kyle, Natalie, Nicole Z., Tony & Zach This Land Is My Land: Competitors are split into three teams. Each team has to stack up forty-five palates in order to raise their flag. Each team is split into three groups: Fabricators, who stack the palates; Suppliers, in charge of supplying the palates by running the palates that roamers supply them to the Fabricators; and Roamers, who must run across the beach and are in charge of supplying the Suppliers through a reservoir or stealing from other teams. The first team to stack their palates and raise their flag wins. Winners: Britni, Natalie, Nicole Z., Tony & Zach Spanish Treasure: Contestants are divided into two teams. Each competitor on the team has to go one at a time to swim over to retrieve a ball. The competitor then has to dive down underwater and place the ball into a net attached to a treasure chest, elevating it slightly. They then swim back and touch a checkpoint before the next competitor on their team can go. Once the chest is brought up to the surface, the team is allowed to bring it back to shore, ending the mission. The team who does this the fastest wins. Winners: Brad, Devin, Jemmye, Natalie, Nicole Z., Tony & Zach Help Me, Rhonda: This is an individual endurance competition. Competitors each have to race one mile up a hill towards Puente Nuevo bridge, where they then have to zipline across a chasm. They then have to run through the streets of Ronda back towards the bridge, before rappelling down the side of the bridge and then running to the finish line. The fastest male and female contestants win, while the slowest male and female contestants are eliminated. Winners: Nicole Z. & Zach Eliminated: Devin & Jemmye Outside the Box: Played individually, players are hooked to a moving semi-truck and forced to traverse from the truck to a dangling pillar with stacked boxes in-between. Players push themselves, alternating between the truck and pillars, weaving between the stacks of boxes. The boxes have varying point values, and if the player knocks over the stack of boxes, those points are added to their overall score. In addition, if a player fails to make the transfer, they receive a transfer penalty. Those with the fewest points wins and gets an automatic ticket into the final challenge. The last place male is eliminated. Winners: Kailah & Tony Eliminated: Nelson
Ring games Balls of Fire: Placed on opposite sides of the Ring in front of two goals, players must kick soccer balls through a wall of fire into their opponent's goal. The player to score the best of three wins and earns a grenade. In the event that nobody can score a goal for an extended period of time the game would be played in a sudden death round. Played by: Cory vs. Nelson Chain Reaction: Players start at the bottom of a chain ladder with only one rung connected on it and the remaining ones disconnected. Players must build the rungs one by one while climbing their ladder until they can reach a bell. The first player to ring the bell wins and earns a grenade.