GTA is one of the best RPG franchises in the world, spanning more than a dozen games on both PC and Consoles. While the franchise is not known for being challenging, there are still plenty of hard missions amongst the 16 GTA titles ever released.

In this article, we are going to list out the top 5 most challenging missions in the GTA Series.

5 - Death Row (GTA Vice City)

The hardest part of this GTA mission is probably the timer - you need to reach the scrapyard quickly before Lance dies. The whole area is filled with goons to slow you down, and Lance's health will keep on dropping. After getting out of the area, you will be chased by more goons. Your task is to drive as fast as possible to take Lance to the hospital... while dealing with the pursuers.

Most people take too long in the scrapyard, causing Lance to die on the road to the hospital.

Death Row mission GTA
Lance is already half-dead when you arrive.

4 - Flight School/ Learning to fly (GTA San Andreas)

Learning to fly is a terrible mission chain that puts your flying skill to the test. What makes this one of the hardest missions in the GTA series is actually the control - GTA SA's aerial vehicles are super clunky and hard to deal with. Every time, you will either skip the hoop or will crash in a pretty awkward way.

There are a lot of progressively harder and harder challenges - you can expect to try over and over again.

Learning to fly mission GTA
Flying through those hoops is super hard.

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3 - Wrong Side Of The Tracks (GTA San Andreas)

GTA SA's Wrong Side of the Tracks mission has you drive Big Smoke around on a motorbike, where he has to take down a bunch of Vagos gang members on a train. The problems with this mission are Big Smoke's lackluster shooting skills and the "wrong track".

The control for vehicles in GTA SA is fairly clunky... and using them to constantly dodge obstacles is not fun at all. You need to avoid incoming car blocks and incoming trains going the opposite direction.

Wrong Side Of The Tracks mission GTA
Big Smoke is useless with a gun.

2 - S.A.M. (GTA III)

S.A.M. aka 'Surface To Air Missile', is arguably one of the most difficult missions in the GTA franchise. In this mission, Claude needs to recover a couple of packages on a landing plane in the airport. The hard part about this is that you need to aim your rocket launcher at the exact moment that the Dodo plane land on the runway. If you miss, the mission fails and you need to restart.

After downing the plane, the next step is to gather the packages on the runway... while dealing with the LCPD swarming all over the place. Overall, not a fun time.

S.A.M mission GTA
Downing the plane is actually the hardest part.

1 - Demolition Man (GTA Vice City)

Clunky control has always been the main problem of all GTA games. This is what made Demolition Man the hardest GTA mission ever. It requires a lot of patience and retries as this one will take a lot of time to get done.

Tommy needs to use a remote control helicopter to transport and plant bombs in various locations around a site whilst avoiding the construction workers and security guards. You need to plant 4 of these bombs at different locations, under bad controls, a timer and no checkpoints. If you fail, the whole thing has to be done all over again.

Demolition Man mission GTA
The timer is why this is amongst the most challenging missions in the GTA Series.

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