Best Side Missions In GTA 5

Key Takeaways

• Armored Truck Robbery provides a big monetary boost early in the game.
• The Altruist Cult mission gives players briefcases filled with money.
• Completing Lester’s assassination missions can lead to massive profits through stock investments.

Grand Theft Auto 5 is one of the most famous games of all time, having dominated the market for over a decade since its initial release. However, there are still players going through the campaign again and again, and there are plenty of useful ways to jump-start a new run by completing some valuable side missions quickly.

There are plenty of amazingly fun side quests in Grand Theft Auto 5, but some of them don’t come with a lot of rewards. Players should look into some of the most well-rewarded side quests early in the game, so they can utilize the rewards before they’re already incredibly rich.

Updated November 22, 2024 by Chris Harkin: Though Grand Theft Auto 6 is finally on the way, fans are still replaying and revisiting the huge world of Los Santos and Grand Theft Auto 5. While some of the die-hard players will have completed every single side quest several times over, many fans have gone through the main storyline and been adventuring around Los Santos without completing some of the best side missions in the game in their hundred-plus hours of playtime. Players will never stop replaying this game and finding more side quests and activities which they regard as absolutely wonderful.

1 Armored Truck Robbery

Repeatable Quests With Plenty Of Action

• Reward: $3,000+
• Best Character: Trevor

This isn’t a specific side mission as much as it is an opportunity that players should be keeping an eye out for from early in their playthrough of Grand Theft Auto 5. Armored vans will be seen around the city with two guards inside, and players can gun these guards down to steal the money that resides inside the vans.

This can be a massive help for players early on since the van can be attacked while loading up or chased down in another car to give a big boost monetarily when it is harder to gain large amounts in one swoop early in the game. The back doors cannot be shot off, instead, players will need to have something explosive at the ready to get them off, but it is worth it for the valuable amount resting inside.

2 The Altruist Cult

The Crazy Cult That Involves Killing Friends

• Reward: $1,000 Per Head
• Best Character: Trevor

For players just looking for an early way to get literal briefcases filled with money, there is a strange mission that players may have missed in previous runs of Grand Theft Auto 5 which they should look into. Available out in the wilderness on the giant map, there is a mission that takes place in the lands of a fanatical cult known as the Altruist Cult.

This mission involves the cult leader demanding that Trevor bring them “lost souls” that they can feed upon in exchange for cash. Eventually, the cult members turn on Trevor during one of these deliveries and Trevor has to take out the cult members in extremely violent fashion, all while stealing the several briefcases filled with cash that they have available.

3 The Epsilon Program

An Entire Questline Around A Cult

• Reward: Up To $2.1 million
• Best Character: Michael

To engage with this sequence of events and missions, involving yet another cult, Michael can go to his computer and complete the surveys involved. While joining this cult, which worships the God Kifflom, involves making payments and donations as Michael tries to rise higher, there is a massive payout waiting at the end of it all.

There are eight full missions involved in the quest line, but if players make the right choices as they continue down the path of this parody cult (which in particular targets Scientology) they will be able to make an enormous 2.1 million in cash, or they will receive the prize of an old tractor, so make sure to take the money when offered it instead of any other gifts that might be available options.

4 Rampages

Trevor’s Special Moments Of Absolute Mayhem

• Reward: Gold Medals
• Best Character: Trevor

Trevor has never been a particularly stable character, but even he has moments when he is a little less lucid than usual. These are known as his rampages, and he has several that he can engage in throughout Grand Theft Auto 5. From taking on and attempting to quickly murder a large group of rednecks, to military and hipster enemies.

None of the rampages are easy to complete, particularly with all the objectives required for a gold medal, but they are worth it for the chaotic fun to be had. Players can control Trevor with a huge variety of weapons and with any number of methods to kill the many enemies sprinting toward him from all sides.

5 Paparazzo

Taking On A New Journalistic Role Across A Series Of Missions

• Reward: Varied
• Best Character: Franklin

While there are some shady things that the protagonists in Grand Theft Auto 5 are willing to do to earn some money, they somehow manage not to feel as sleazy as tabloid photographers. However, Franklin takes on this role in the Paparazzo missions, when he is happened upon by a photographer and begins helping out on a series of quests to get the best pictures in town.

While this might not sound like the most exciting sequence of quests, players will be shocked at the sort of things they’ll have to do as a member of the paparazzi. In the first mission alone, they must knock a rival member of the press off his bike (or alternatively just kill him) and it only gets wilder as Beverly gives Franklin more quests to help out on over time.

6 The Assassinations

Opportunity To Corner The Stock Market

• Reward: Varied
• Best Character: Franklin

Players may not think much of Lester’s assassination missions in Grand Theft Auto 5, but these can be used to great effect if players focus a little. Lester will engage Franklin in five separate assassinations of investment bankers over the course of this sequence of missions, and Franklin can if he chooses buy up stocks after they plummet due to the assassination of these bankers.

This results in the stock prices rising again gradually, and Franklin being able to sell the stocks to quickly make ridiculous amounts of money. The reward for these missions isn’t so much in the reward as in the opportunity it presents players with.

7 The Los Santos Slasher

Catching Out A Serial Killer

• Reward: $100,000 & Navy Revolver
• Best Character: Trevor

Players will hear throughout their time in Los Santos during Grand Theft Auto 5 about the Slasher who has been terrorizing the city of late. While he never needs to be interacted with as part of any main story quest, there is a side mission where the killer starts to drop clues that reveal more about his identity and presence in the city.

After players find and uncover all of these clues, the Slasher will send a threatening message, leading to a final confrontation where the Slasher attempts to take the player out. In exchange for killing the killer at the end of all this, players get a unique gun reward in addition to a huge volume of cash which would be useful to obtain early-game.

8 Death Matches

The Wildest Contests Of All

• Reward: $100 per head
• Best Character: Any

Though it may be difficult to get involved in death matches early in the game, these side quests are available in the “available jobs” menu and pit players against a variety of other players and AI opponents in a variety of combat and stealth situations where the last man or AI player standing wins from a pool of potential rewards.

Players can gain achievements, money, and an excellent variety of items from completing and achieving victories in death match situations, so these will always be one of the best side quests for players to get involved in when starting a new run and attempting to make money quickly. It will be trickier for players with a lack of weapons to pick up victories, so these missions should be put off a little until players have gathered some weaponry, but they can be completed fairly early on without too much risk.