What to expect from the Flood in the Halo Infinite campaign
Will the series’ iconic foe make a comeback in Infinite?
Halo Infinite’s epic campaign is just a few hours away from release, and top of mind for every Spartan out there is whether or not the franchise’s most dangerous alien race — the Flood — makes an appearance in the game. There are lots of plot spoilers surfacing on social media these days, but we’re here to do our best to explain one of the campaign’s major plot threads without revealing its key details. Are the Flood in Halo Infinite? Here’s a spoiler-free recap on what you need to know.
What are the Flood in the Halo universe?
If you’ve been playing Halo games for a while, you likely know that the Flood are a central antagonist in Master Chief’s saga. They first appeared in the original Halo: Combat Evolved as a sort of zombie parasite organism that feeds on living creatures, mutating them into violent husks. Space zombies is a good way to put it.
The Flood are the big bads of the Halo universe.
As the big bad of the franchise, the Flood cause death and destruction to the sentient life around them. The Halo array, which includes the Zeta Halo featured in Halo Infinite, were created to contain and study the Flood. As a last resort, the Halo array could also be used to destroy all sentient life, therefore starving the Flood. The belief is that, without food to latch onto, the Flood would cease to exist.
The history of the Flood is even more ancient. Tens of millions of years before the events of the games, there was a war between the Lovecraftian primordial beings called the Precursors and the alien species they created: the Forerunners. The Precursors were all built totally wiped out, and dust formed from their desiccated remains eventually gave way to the Flood infection.
Keep in mind that the Flood is still around in some capacity, yet the Precursors and Forerunners are not.
Are the Flood in Halo Infinite?
The Banished are the central antagonist throughout most of Halo Infinite, but is there another threat?
Nope. Allusions are made in the early chapters of the Halo Infinite campaign that Zeta Halo hides a threat that stands to be far worse than the Flood. And the creepy parasitic species does not appear in any capacity.
What’s hiding on Zeta Halo?
Without giving too much away, the cryptic new threat that emerges in Master Chief’s latest mission is called “The Endless.” We know very little about their appearance or nature thus far other than the fact that they were imprisoned on Zeta Halo by the Forerunners.
Given the history we just described above, it’s possible that the Endless might be associated in some fashion with the Precursors, but for the most part, the Endless remain the series’ biggest new mystery that’s left open for interpretation and speculation. Wherever the series goes next, rest assured that the Endless will play a bit part.
