Information about the Riding Shotgun Side Hustle in Saints Row, including the locations of each Riding Shotgun event, how to complete Riding Shotgun events, what weapons you can use during each one and what rewards you get for completing them.

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The location of all the Riding Shotgun Side Hustles on the map.

What is the Riding Shotgun Side Hustle?¶

Riding Shotgun is a Side Hustle in Saints Row, a sort of side mission/minigame that is otherwise not connected to any particular Venture. Riding Shotgun is one of the initial Side Hustles that’ll unlock after you complete the Mission Observe and Report, along with [Choplifting]. There’s no incentive to complete these Side Hustles in terms of progression, but you’ll earn various rewards for completing them, including XP, cash, and potentially new weapon skins and patterns.

You’ll initially start out with three Riding Shotgun Side Hustles, one in East Providencia, another in El Dorado and a third in Lakeshore South. Each of these initial Riding Shotgun events involves a different character who needs your help fending off one of the Santo Ileso’s three rival gangs for various reasons. While their motivations vary, the core gameplay remains the same; you’ll need to accompany them on whatever task they’ve undertaken and if things go sour, deter pursuit with extreme violence. Once you complete one of these three initial Riding Shotgun Side Hustles, another will spawn featuring the same character, for a total of six Riding Shotgun events across Santo Ileso.

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(1 of 3) Fighting enemies from the rooftop will give you access to more weapons,

How to Complete Riding Shotgun Side Hustles¶

It turns out that hiring the boss was a wise idea, as naturally the actions of your employer end up provoking a violent gang response. Regardless of which Riding Shotgun event you started, the core gameplay is virtually identical; the other character will handle the driving while you ride shotgun - get it? - and use your free hands to dispose of the various hostile vehicles chasing you.

By default you’ll ride in the passenger seat, from which you can fire your weapons with / , fine aim with / and swap between weapons via the weapon wheel by holding down / , same as on foot. While you’re in the vehicle your health will regenerate quickly, but your weapon choices are limited to one-handed weapons (typically pistols or SMGs). If you hold / you’ll climb onto the roof, which will stunt your health regeneration and leave you more vulnerable to enemy fire, but it’ll give you access to the full range of weapons available to you for this particular Riding Shotgun event. When you kill enemy vehicles your own vehicle will be healed, so Riding Shotgun is something of a balancing act between seeking shelter inside the vehicle to recover your own health and climbing out onto the roof so you can inflict more damage and presumably keep your vehicle healed by killing enemies more rapidly. You cannot use Skills during Riding Shotgun events, but you have unlimited ammo.

It’s also worth noting that your weapon selection varies by Riding Shotgun event, and most Riding Shotgun events will have its own Bonus Objectives and Rewards. In the case of Bonus Objectives, these are rather trivial sub-objectives that exist to earn you extra 450 XP per sub-objective cleared, and don’t otherwise affect your rewards or the completion of these events. The Rewards you’ll earn just for clearing the Riding Shotgun event, regardless of how many sub-objectives (if any) you also complete. The weapon selection, however, is quite possibly the more important aspect of these Side Hustles, as they can significantly alter your playstyle. All of these will be recorded below:

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You can attempt to complete bonus objectives during Riding Shotgun events, but they just yield a paltry amount of bonus XP, and can safely be ignored.

If you care about objectives, you’ll want to rely on faster-firing weapons like SMGs to take out tires, while killing enemy drivers is best accomplished with slower, more powerful weapons like shotguns, especially if you target nearby enemies on motorcycles, who are less shielded by their vehicle. Failing that, using shotguns to pump shells into the engines of nearby vehicles will usually suffice to thin the herd, just remember to duck back into the safety of the vehicle if you need to heal.