This page explains what Side Hustles are in Saints Row (2022), including how to locate and complete them, and the rewards you gain for doing so.

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Side Hustles are represented by blue diamonds on the map.

What Are Side Hustles in Saints Row?¶

A more substantial form of open world busywork, Side Hustles and Ventures combine to fill the role of “Activities” found in older Saints Row games. Side Hustles are marked on your map by blue diamonds, and unlike Ventures completing them doesn’t make progress towards a larger goal. Completing Side Hustles does, however, earn you the aforementioned XP and cash, and many will yield weapon skins and vehicle patterns. Completing a new Side Hustle for the first time will cause new variants of the same type of Side Hustle to appear around Santo Ileso. New Side Hustles will also become available as you complete Missions and advance the main questline.

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(1 of 4) Different types of Side Hustles revolve around different gameplay elements, from standard combat,

Your objective varies by the type of Side Hustle you’re performing, and Side Hustles in effect act as different “minigames” you can complete for rewards. Some variants of Side Hustles include:

• @TCHA: Visit a store and leave a less than stellar review to draw the ire of that store’s protecting gang. The lower the score you leave, the more violent the response will be. This effectively allows you to summon waves of enemies to gun down with little fuss or long-term consequence.

• [Riding Shotgun]: You’re tasked with protecting a vehicle while, you guessed it, riding shotgun. Your weapon selection may be altered during these Side Hustles, but you tend to have infinite ammo for the guns you’ve allowed to use. Good practice for vehicular combat in general.

• [Pony Express]: You’ll need to race across Santo Ileso to a set destination under a certain time limit, although the route is largely up to you to choose.

• [Wingsuit Saboteur]: Jump out of a helicopter and glide over to targets, where you’ll need to destroy satellite dishes before time expires. You (typically) have enough explosives to destroy the targets, although you do need to balance picking an efficient route from target to target, fighting enemies guarding the dishes and quickly moving to the next location.

• [Choplifting]: Mostly tests your helicopter handling. You need to intercept a target, secure it with a magnetic winch, then fly your pilfered prize to a target destination. Some parts of these endeavors are timed in various ways.

As you can see, Side Hustles are fairly diverse, gameplay wise, and tend to focus on specific gameplay aspects. Pretty much every Side Hustle is repeatable, making them good ways to grind out Challenges or meet the upgrade requirements to unlock a weapon’s Signature Abilities. They’re also worth a fair amount of cash and XP, so you can effectively use them to grind out a few levels if there’s a specific Skill you want to unlock.

Side Hustle Bonus Objectives¶

In addition to the stated rewards, some Side Hustles have Bonus Objectives related to the dominant gameplay. [Pony Express] Side Hustles may have bonuses for getting air time during the event, sideswipping enemies vehicles, or finishing with time left on the clock, while [Riding Shotgun] may have bonuses for killing enemy drivers and shooting out the tires of hostile vehicles. Completing these will yield extra cash at the end of the Side Hustle, but don’t otherwise seem to be required to complete the Side Hustle.