Flood (Halo)
The parasite is depicted as such a threat that the ancient Forerunners constructed artificial ringworld superweapons known as Halos to contain it and, as a last resort, to kill all sentient life in the galaxy in an effort to stop the Flood's spread by starving it.
Bungie environment artist Vic DeLeon spent six months of pre-production time refining the Flood's fleshy aesthetic and designing the organic interiors of Flood-infested spaceships for Halo 3.
[12] The larger creatures were constructed from the corpses and bodies of former combatants, so the artists had to make sure the Flood soldiers were recognizable while changing their silhouette enough to differentiate them from the uninfected.
"We didn't have the resources to make it happen," McLees recalled, so they modified the game's fiction to suggest that some Covenant were too small or too frail to serve as combat troops.
The dinosaur-like terrestrial wildlife that originally dwelled in Halo's environments were dropped due to gameplay constraints and fear that their presence would reduce the surprise and impact of the Flood.
[17] Flood-infested structures were designed as angular to counterbalance Flood biomass, as well as provide surfaces for the game's artificial intelligence to exploit and move on.
New additions were designed to be multi-purpose; exploding "growth pods" that spew Flood forms were added to the game to adjust pacing, provide instant action, and add to the visuals.
[10] Bungie used Halo 3's improved capacity for graphics to make a host's sudden transformation into Flood form more dramatic; two different character models and skeletons were fused and swapped in real-time.
The artificial intelligence Cortana sends the supersoldier Master Chief to find their captain, Jacob Keyes, who disappeared in a swamp while searching for a weapons cache.
The Master Chief fights his way to the center of High Charity, freeing Cortana and destroying the city, but Gravemind attempts to rebuild itself on a Halo under construction at the Ark.
In Halo Wars, they are encountered infesting a Forerunner installation and ultimately annihilated by the actions of the human ship Spirit of Fire's crew.
In the Halo Wars 2 expansion "Awakening the Nightmare", the surviving Flood are accidentally released by the Banished while salvaging the remaining wreckage of High Charity.
Lee Hammock, writer of The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor, described the basis of the story as a way to showcase the true danger of the Flood as an intelligent menace, rather than something the player encounters and shoots.
[31] The Flood also features heavily in Greg Bear's trilogy of novels, the Forerunner Saga, which takes place thousands of years before the events of the main games.
The novel Halo: Silentium reveals that the Flood is what remains of the Precursors, an ancient race that was said to accelerate the evolution of a species and shape galaxies.
[32] The Flood appear in the finale of the Halo live-action series' second season; a Polygon review noted that the show's presentation is more akin to traditional zombies than that of the games.
Paulissen notes that the name 'Flood' suggests a reference to the biblical deluge, with the Forerunner Ark being shelter from the Flood's destructive and cleansing power akin to the Bible.
The Flood's induced physiological changes recall the modified eyestalks of hosts infected by Leucochloridium paradoxum, or malformed limbs of Ribeiroia-infected amphibians.
[36] The surprise appearance of the Flood during Halo: Combat Evolved was seen as an important plot twist[37] and a scary moment even after repeat playthroughs of the game.
[43] Daniel Weissenberger of Gamecritics.com noted in his review of Halo 3 that even though the Flood looked better than ever, its single strategy of rushing the player proved tedious over time.
