Ok so Halo Infinite has the banish basically going on a warpath cus the Blue lady blew up their homeworld.
I guess Idk that’s how it comes off to me.
But it makes.nonsense to me. Atriox is pretty smart and the whole concept of the Banished was they didn’t want to live under Subjugation.
The Covenant was the Banished Main antagonist, after that they really were just trying to ensure they weren’t weak and capable of being ruled over.
Que Cortana and her War path…
It honestly would have made sense for the Banished, UNSC and Arbiter to have an alliance.
Meanwhile Cortana manages to Raise an Army and provides them with essentially a Superior Arsenal and Fleet the Size of the Covenant at its peak.
Cortana somehow is Defeated, but this New Force now just wants to Conquer the Universe.
So That is the new Antagonist, they could have even been called the something different.
Meanwhile while this is going on, the Flood presents itself as a threat as well. And Chief, Arbiter and Atriox all have had run ins with the flood.thus Chief and Arbiter give everyone a crash course on a Grave Mind and how they essentially have to destroy all of them to stop the flood.
So this can tie into lore Weapon Variants as with the combined efforts of the UNSC, the Arbiters forces and The Banished new variants of weapons are made, warthogs that shoot Needler rounds, and Skewer Rounds.
New Rocket launchers, UNSC ships that have Banished/Covenant style flight systems making Ng them faster. Adding that gravity lift tech to UNSC stuff.
And with the Flood they adapt the Hard light tech to weapons to essentially Compose Flood spores and other stuff so their is no trace of it left.
This also leads to Playable Elites in game and lore accurate , hell maybe even Playable Brutes.
They can even do a destiny style Open world concept where you travel from one planet to another or a ring or two. Through a galactic map.
But I guess fighting the banished was probably an easier thing to do on such a last minute development time frame.
And.thus we got the Infinite monologuing Brute Escherum