The secret message behind Infection

Games Halo 5: Guardians
1

Note: this is a serious topic, with the goal of notifying the community.

I’ve just started playing infection this morning and I’m really enjoying the game mode at first glance. I’m really glad it’s finally out. It handles well except for the fact that you have little customisation in the settings to tweak your own Gametype, such as vehicle boarding. Big disappointment for many it seems.

First I want to get in to the good stuff, the meat on the plate they gave us, and then I’ll talk about the real story about why we waited so long for infection, or in other words, why 343 gave us meat but no gravy on top.

Good: Infection is back. I really enjoy playing it. And to top it off I wish 343 thought of this sooner for custom games: the music! While we play infection we listen to infected music and it sounds awesome. And to think most of the time we play Halo there isn’t any background music? This is a serious praise from me and I hope there can be scripted music for custom games.

The bad: The infected are Spartans, not flood. I do enjoy being a green/black fearsome Spartan, it feels so sporty, but the fact is there’s actually a secret message hidden behind this decision.

The truth is 343 wants nothing to do with the flood anymore. “How do you mean K27R? They brought back infection”. Exactly, they “brought back” infection because everyone wanted it so damn much. It didn’t actually take them months to develop. It’s just laziness that took it so long.

#1 In Halo reality, the Flood are a serious threat. 343 disagrees. The talking grunt on Sanghellios clearly states to the Elite that the Flood “wasn’t a scary opponent”. (Implying that Prometheans are more dangerous) This is the biggest clue about 343’s opinion on the flood.

#2 Nothing Flood related in Halo 5, until now, and yet it (infection) has all the characteristics of the Flood, yet, no Flood itself??! It’s obvious just by playing infection you can tell how powerful the Flood would actually be if they came back. Yeah it’s a Gametype, but wouldn’t it have been much better to have actual Flood like in Halo 4, but scarier? Can you imagine how much more fun it would be if we actually played as Flood in infection?

#3 343 delayed anything Flood related at all costs. Now you might be saying infection is a zombie Gametype, not Flood. Fair enough. But if that’s the case why has 343 taken 6+ months to “develop” a Gametype they already created in Halo 4? It’s because it’s fun as hell and 343 doesn’t want you to have the most absolute fun you can possibly have. In May areas they focus their attention well, such as most weaponry, but in other areas they only give you an 8/10 effort. They don’t aim for the absolute best results, especially when it comes down to something like infection.

#4 Just to prove how 343 doesn’t want you to obtain the absolute best experience Halo 5 has to offer, and the amount of potential they left out, think about the “rare” REQ cards. They don’t want you to have an abundance of the coolest guns. Or the coolest armour as a matter of fact. If you thought 343 really cared about giving the players the best customisation, or best armour in town, well your dead wrong. Instead of getting that cool Noble armour you want, it’s locked behind 4 sets of cards which in total cost more than a brand new copy of the actual game (Halo 5) itself. Why? Because 343 doesn’t want you to enjoy an of it. They want the players to yearn for the best, spoon feeding us the potential but never actually giving their absolute best. Hell to prove it, Halo 4 had better graphics than Halo 5.

Now I’m not saying Halo 5 is a bad game or infection is bad. I enjoy them and they’re good, but not as good as it should’ve been.

The whole point of this topic is to point out to the fact that 343 isn’t giving their absolute best, and the other important message I want to share is that 343 is mocking the Flood. Just by delaying infection alone is a wake up call that 343 was very hesitant to bring it back, but still knows we all love the Flood/Infection etc. Same goes for storyline too. They’d much rather evolve the story around Sarah Palmer or an insane Cortana or a ‘yes-man’ Locke rather than give you the best Halo story to date.

So if you agree with me let me know. Or if you disagree have your say. This is all my opinion. There is more evidence to prove 343 doesn’t want anything to do with the Flood, and the talking grunt on Sanghellios is a clear indication that they view the Prometheans as way more scary than the Flood and laugh at those who disagree. The Infection gametype, having the characteristics of the Flood but refuse to involve any actual Flood, is another clear symbol saying “F*** the Flood”.

2

… Remember h4s flood infection? People hated that -Yoink-, also, many preferred the reach or h3 infection where we were Spartan form.

Fyi: just about everything you said is more speculation rather than fact, there’s been hints that the flood may return, but 343 is still getting the forunner saga finished, which really isn’t about the flood, so why involve them when they’re irrelevant?

To to your comment on the elite: how does that in anyway represent 343 thinking the forunner is worse than the flood? How? H5 is set after the flood are supposedly done for, so of course organic life would then ignore them if they’re not a threat at the moment and worry more about current issues.

3

what

4

Or maybe they thought that the community didn’t like playing as Flood Spartans, so they changed it back to green Spartans as Infected.

5

TBH I couldn’t tell if this post was serious at first. The flood game type received bad feedback so 343 listened. Also, I can’t believe you quoted the grunt that was there purely for obvious comedic relief.

6

Regarding the ‘limited’ customisation, we need to remember that ever since Angry Birds, a primary source of income for studios is now microtransactions.
Now, given that new maps and whatnot for Halo 5 are essentially free, I can’t fault their strategy. The employees need to be paid and this is being funded in part by the microtransactions.
Force people to pay for map packs (Like Reach or CoD) and you start to fracture the player base.

As for the lack of mention of the flood? Maybe it’s all a bit of clever misdirection… :wink:

7

> 2533274925072192;5:
> TBH I couldn’t tell if this post was serious at first. The flood game type received bad feedback so 343 listened. Also, I can’t believe you quoted the grunt that was there purely for obvious comedic relief.

I mention the Grubt because if you’re mart you’ll realise what the Grunt is “actually” saying. I’ve been meaning to write an article just about him for some time but haven’t gotten around to doing it yet, so to freshen up people’s memories, I mention him here because he is the definition of “flood is not cool” from 343 l’s perspective.

8

Given that Flood are running around the Spirit of Fire in the conclusion of the Spirit of Fire arc in Halo: Escalation, I doubt that.

9

I do wish they made people who got infected into the flood. That would be sick!

10

i firmly believe there are legalities blocking 343i from being able to use the flood in-game. It’s probably Bungie’s intellectual property and if we dig hard enough, we can probably find Bungie copyrighted elements of the flood.

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> 2533274812652989;8:
> Given that Flood are running around the Spirit of Fire in the conclusion of the Spirit of Fire arc in Halo: Escalation, I doubt that.

Another article yet to be written. I’ve got no doubt they still remain but “bringing them back” as opponents is what 343 is so hesitant to do. Will they be in Halo Wars 2? The answer is “hopefully”, because 343 is obsessed with the Infinity and the story could revolve around that, and the Pronetheans. But we’ll see.

12

I think your overthinking 343’s actions here most of the changes they did were to appease fans such as the non-flood infected

13

> 2533274812652989;8:
> Given that Flood are running around the Spirit of Fire in the conclusion of the Spirit of Fire arc in Halo: Escalation, I doubt that.

We need to keep in mind that Creative Assembly, not 343i are developing Halo Wars 2. I think Activision/Bungie would file suit against MS/343i if 343i developed a game that featured the flood in a stand alone Halo campaign.

14

> 2535412280615383;13:
> > 2533274812652989;8:
> > Given that Flood are running around the Spirit of Fire in the conclusion of the Spirit of Fire arc in Halo: Escalation, I doubt that.
>
>
> We need to keep in mind that Creative Assembly, not 343i are developing Halo Wars 2. I think Activision/Bungie would file suit against MS/343i if 343i developed a game that featured the flood in a stand alone Halo campaign.

How? All Halo related properties belong to 343 Industries and Microsoft, not Bungie and Activision.

15

> 2535441431388274;12:
> I think your overthinking 343’s actions here most of the changes they did were to appease fans such as the non-flood infected

Giving us the option would’ve been grand, or at least make the leader Zombie flood. Score 9/10

16

> 2535437652903765;14:
> > 2535412280615383;13:
> > > 2533274812652989;8:
> > > Given that Flood are running around the Spirit of Fire in the conclusion of the Spirit of Fire arc in Halo: Escalation, I doubt that.
> >
> >
> > We need to keep in mind that Creative Assembly, not 343i are developing Halo Wars 2. I think Activision/Bungie would file suit against MS/343i if 343i developed a game that featured the flood in a stand alone Halo campaign.
>
>
> How? All Halo related properties belong to 343 Industries and Microsoft, not Bungie and Activision.

I found an article online years ago talking about how Bungie might’ve retained some of the rights to the flood… I will see if I can find it again.

EDIT: Plus, why would 343i actively avoid placing such an established and formidable enemy in any of their games since taking over the franchise.

17

> 2535412280615383;16:
> > 2535437652903765;14:
> > > 2535412280615383;13:
> > > > 2533274812652989;8:
> > > > Given that Flood are running around the Spirit of Fire in the conclusion of the Spirit of Fire arc in Halo: Escalation, I doubt that.
> > >
> > >
> > > We need to keep in mind that Creative Assembly, not 343i are developing Halo Wars 2. I think Activision/Bungie would file suit against MS/343i if 343i developed a game that featured the flood in a stand alone Halo campaign.
> >
> >
> > How? All Halo related properties belong to 343 Industries and Microsoft, not Bungie and Activision.
>
>
> I found an article online years ago talking about how Bungie might’ve retained some of the rights to the flood… I will see if I can find it again.

Bungie might have missed any right to claim the Flood when the Forerunner Trilogy of books incorporates them. But even then, Microsoft owns the rights to Halo and have ever since Bungie signed up with them all those years ago.

18

> 2533274848239848;6:
> Regarding the ‘limited’ customisation, we need to remember that ever since Angry Birds, a primary source of income for studios is now microtransactions.
> Now, given that new maps and whatnot for Halo 5 are essentially free, I can’t fault their strategy. The employees need to be paid and this is being funded in part by the microtransactions.
> Force people to pay for map packs (Like Reach or CoD) and you start to fracture the player base.
>
> As for the lack of mention of the flood? Maybe it’s all a bit of clever misdirection… :wink:

Please by all means pay them $100’s of your hard earned money for some in-game content.

19

Not entirely sure how you can imply that the Forerunner Saga and the Flood should be separate issues. The Flood changed the Forerunner’s culture, livelihood, and philosophies near the end. You can’t tell a story about the descent and possible return of the Forerunners without mentioning the Flood.

The Flood need a MUCH larger presence in the games.

20

> 2533274812650916;19:
> Not entirely sure how you can imply that the Forerunner Saga and the Flood should be separate issues. The Flood changed the Forerunner’s culture, livelihood, and philosophies near the end. You can’t tell a story about the descent and possible return of the Forerunners without mentioning the Flood.
>
> The Flood need a MUCH larger presence in the games.

I don’t disagree, but at the same time perhaps the Flood just isn’t a crucial aspect to the story 343 is wanting to tell? Like, I don’t like how Halo 5 ended up, but adding Flood to it would hardly improve it.