'The Challenge: Total Madness' Features One of the Wildest Twists Yet

You don't get a season of The Challenge without a wild twist to throw off everyone, including viewers. This time around, The Challenge: Total Madness twist is all about keeping in the best of the best competitors so that, at the end of the season, the competition will be fiercer than ever. Of course, that can be said for most seasons, but this time around, the stakes are higher and the returning vets are out for blood.

There are also some cast members this season who are new to The Challenge altogether. In their own way, they might be even stronger competitors because of their need to prove themselves and also make it to the end so they can walk away with the $1 million prize. Before that happens, however, they are going to need to understand the ins and outs of the twist that could make or break each one of them.

The big twist of The Challenge: Total Madness is that, in order to make it to the finals this season, players have to win an elimination. This means that, instead of begging the tribunal (or however the voting structure will work this time around) to allow them to remain safe, some players might request to be put in the ring to fight it out with another competitor.

It’s still not clear if players will be nominated or if they will find themselves in an elimination round some other way, but they are likely either going to want to be in one right away to secure their spot for the end or wait until they have more confidence and more alliances to back them up. The one thing this changes is that, instead of some players getting to the finals without ever being in an elimination, they are going to have to prove themselves to earn a spot.

Past seasons of The Challenge have taken competitors all over the world. In the early days, the show took players around the United States, to places like Las Vegas and Portland. Eventually, however, they traveled to Mexico, Jamaica, Australia, and Brazil, just to name a few of the more ideal filming locations.

The Challenge: Total Madness was filmed in Prague, doing away with any potential for tropical scenery or warm, if dangerous, deserts to contend with. This time, things are brutal, with the competitors staying in a bunker instead of a house and, very likely, no opportunities to have random nights out at the local club, as they have in the past. The stakes have definitely been raised.

Another thing that might make the season more intense for some of the returning vets is the introduction of some rookies. Vets like Ashley Mitchell, Chris "CT" Tamburello, and Johnny "Bananas" Devenanzio are going to fight it out, but Total Madness will also feature competitors who have never had to battle it out like this.

Christopher "Swaggy C" Williams and Bayleigh Dayton, a couple from Big Brother 20, are part of the cast this season. Asaf Goren from Are You the One? 4 and Jennifer Lee from The Amazing Race 29 are two new other players to watch out for. Overall, The Challenge: Total Madness is going to be, well, madness.

Watch The Challenge: Total Madness on Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on MTV.