Your Flood design reaction

Games Halo Wars Series
#1

Hi guys, I have finally finished the ATN in legendary and I was thinking for few days now about the flood design. I love the actual units forms, but the air one, I feel the design is too plain, kind of like really inconsistent… Why not a kind of ballom air or winds… dont get me wrong, it is original but still I feel something is missing.

For the rest I have a mix feeling… The Flood bases are really cool, I am talking about not the infected ones but those that look like a base. The infected bases so so, I dont like the black metal material they gave to the solid parts of the base… Overall I feel there is something weird about the flood design, like some people did some models and other people did others, I see different kind of textures and finishers for some parts that make the overall design not cohesive. I frigging love the proto gravemind, but the tentacles are blocking your way dont look like part of the main body, the actual tentacles when you are close to the proto gravemind look better.

Dunno, I am an artist designer and I am always thinking about tiny little details. Hope u can share yoyr thoughts with me.

#2

> 2553380145882876;1:
> Hi guys, I have finally finished the ATN in legendary and I was thinking for few days now about the flood design. I love the actual units forms, but the air one, I feel the design is too plain, kind of like really inconsistent… Why not a kind of ballom air or winds… dont get me wrong, it is original but still I feel something is missing.
>
> For the rest I have a mix feeling… The Flood bases are really cool, I am talking about not the infected ones but those that look like a base. The infected bases so so, I dont like the black metal material they gave to the solid parts of the base… Overall I feel there is something weird about the flood design, like some people did some models and other people did others, I see different kind of textures and finishers for some parts that make the overall design not cohesive. I frigging love the proto gravemind, but the tentacles are blocking your way dont look like part of the main body, the actual tentacles when you are close to the proto gravemind look better.
>
> Dunno, I am an artist designer and I am always thinking about tiny little details. Hope u can share yoyr thoughts with me.

Oh there is no question that the design has changed.
I -Yoinking!- loved ATN and all of it’s glory but there are a few main things that stand out for me!

That weird fluorescent goo inside of the sacks the new ones now have.
They just don’t scream “Flood” to me when you contrast such bright colours with a disgusting green, that was essentially to remain
‘Disgusting.’

Also, the new emphasis on making the flood literally worms in some cases really bugs me.
The tentacles with spikes, particularly the ones you have to hit with the mega cannons (Not the ones you fight and destroy) look to0 aesthetic and biologically sane that it makes me think of a cool creature, but not the flood. They’ve done the flood well before, got all the textures and creeps and inconsistencies right with the gravemind, even some great representation of the flood carriers.
I also really enjoyed the In-game abomination, very well animated, titanic and scary, MADE to scare the enemy, but still beatable.
It’s exactly the flood equivalent of each Faction’s ‘Scarab, and Condor’.

Other than that, it’s nitpicky, but what happened to the flower sensory organs on the front of the infected forms?
I see they took out the red tips for the flood carriers, and that’s obviously to remain consistent in the dark, but they flat out removed them from most of the others.
Some of the brutes in game have them, but the main one in cutscene only had some tentacles.
and an… arm? Sticking out of shoulder?
It was -Yoinking!- weird,
believable but weird.

One form however really made my skin crawl!
Those fat gorilla forms that dragged around those egg sacks. The tentacles just flooding out of it’s mouth!
I loved this one so much because of the horror portrayed in it’s movement, all the tentacles shielding the inside, and only god knows what horror you could find inside!
The entire mouth area reminded me of my reaction to Tryphophia.

How do you feel about them? hahaha!

Other than that, the flood is lookin good!

Even the Proto-Gravemind you see in game is absolutely amazing, wierd and scary!

#3

I agree with the Orange glowing spots and the large tentacles. The orange spots were really reminiscent of the Gears 3 imulsion monsters, but to be fair they only seemed visible in that cutscene. The tentacles seemed like a reimagining from H3’s look, but still they look to natural. Overall I really liked the designs they added.

#4

FuN FaCt: Turns out we have already seen that flying flood form before and it is not from where you’ld expect. From what it looks like, that flying infector is actually seen in the Halo texture pack in Minecraft: It replaces the squid model. (from what it looks like really, but it may have just been a regular infector form)

#5

> 2717573882290912;3:
> I agree with the Orange glowing spots and the large tentacles. The orange spots were really reminiscent of the Gears 3 imulsion monsters, but to be fair they only seemed visible in that cutscene. The tentacles seemed like a reimagining from H3’s look, but still they look to natural. Overall I really liked the designs they added.

Lambant. They also only seemed to appear on the new trapeze artist/parkour master flood.

> 2533275013567761;2:
> > 2553380145882876;1:
> >
>
> Oh there is no question that the design has changed.
> I -Yoinking!- loved ATN and all of it’s glory but there are a few main things that stand out for me!
>
> That weird fluorescent goo inside of the sacks the new ones now have.
> They just don’t scream “Flood” to me when you contrast such bright colours with a disgusting green, that was essentially to remain
> ‘Disgusting.’
>
> Also, the new emphasis on making the flood literally worms in some cases really bugs me.
> The tentacles with spikes, particularly the ones you have to hit with the mega cannons (Not the ones you fight and destroy) look to0 aesthetic and biologically sane that it makes me think of a cool creature, but not the flood. They’ve done the flood well before, got all the textures and creeps and inconsistencies right with the gravemind, even some great representation of the flood carriers.
> I also really enjoyed the In-game abomination, very well animated, titanic and scary, MADE to scare the enemy, but still beatable.
> It’s exactly the flood equivalent of each Faction’s ‘Scarab, and Condor’.
>
> Other than that, it’s nitpicky, but what happened to the flower sensory organs on the front of the infected forms?
> I see they took out the red tips for the flood carriers, and that’s obviously to remain consistent in the dark, but they flat out removed them from most of the others.
> Some of the brutes in game have them, but the main one in cutscene only had some tentacles.
> and an… arm? Sticking out of shoulder?
> It was -Yoinking!- weird,
> believable but weird.
>
> One form however really made my skin crawl!
> Those fat gorilla forms that dragged around those egg sacks. The tentacles just flooding out of it’s mouth!
> I loved this one so much because of the horror portrayed in it’s movement, all the tentacles shielding the inside, and only god knows what horror you could find inside!
> The entire mouth area reminded me of my reaction to Tryphophia.
>
> How do you feel about them? hahaha!
>
> Other than that, the flood is lookin good!
>
>
>
> Even the Proto-Gravemind you see in game is absolutely amazing, wierd and scary!
>
>
>

I liked the new design except for the fact that the Proto-Gravemind reminded me too much of the Zerg Overmind.

#6

> 2533275013567761;2:
> > 2553380145882876;1:
> >
>
> I -Yoinking!- loved ATN and all of it’s glory but there are a few main things that stand out for me!
>
> That weird fluorescent goo inside of the sacks the new ones now have.
> They just don’t scream “Flood” to me when you contrast such bright colours with a disgusting green, that was essentially to remain
> ‘Disgusting.’

I agree everything you said. Every single part. About the glowing yellow sacks. Actually I feel it makes sense since they were living in High Charity and there is no light inside. So this is kind of a natural way to create light. Dunno, it sounds weird but it has a realistic possible cause. Someone pointed out that resembles a lot to the Gears emulsion, which is true indeed! I like them to try new things, it is just the feeling of the flood for me is slightly different… It is more… Descomposition, greeny, (I wish my English was better LOL)…
You pointed out something about the Brute, and man, I thought the same. In game those units look sooo cool, when you start playing the mission in Fisure map and there is an ingame shortscene where you can see an infected elite and brute! BUT U HAVE TO SAY about the cinematic that those Brutes were just few seconds before transformed sooo… maybe that is the reason because their flood form is not fully developed.

Anyway, I feel really cool seeing more people with similar opinion. I would love to see those art works of concept design during the development of this.

#7

> 2553380145882876;6:
> > 2533275013567761;2:
> > > 2553380145882876;1:
> > >
> >
> > I -Yoinking!- loved ATN and all of it’s glory but there are a few main things that stand out for me!
> >
> > That weird fluorescent goo inside of the sacks the new ones now have.
> > They just don’t scream “Flood” to me when you contrast such bright colours with a disgusting green, that was essentially to remain
> > ‘Disgusting.’
>
> I agree everything you said. Every single part. About the glowing yellow sacks. Actually I feel it makes sense since they were living in High Charity and there is no light inside. So this is kind of a natural way to create light. Dunno, it sounds weird but it has a realistic possible cause. Someone pointed out that resembles a lot to the Gears emulsion, which is true indeed! I like them to try new things, it is just the feeling of the flood for me is slightly different… It is more… Descomposition, greeny, (I wish my English was better LOL)…
> You pointed out something about the Brute, and man, I thought the same. In game those units look sooo cool, when you start playing the mission in Fisure map and there is an ingame shortscene where you can see an infected elite and brute! BUT U HAVE TO SAY about the cinematic that those Brutes were just few seconds before transformed sooo… maybe that is the reason because their flood form is not fully developed.
>
> Anyway, I feel really cool seeing more people with similar opinion. I would love to see those art works of concept design during the development of this.

Same same same!
also -Yoink- me dude, your theory is WAY better! The idea that a flood disease living inside of a Broken Carrier as big as high charity had enough time to develop some sort of light source is amazing! I made the same kind of theory to do with their blackish tint of flesh being darker so that it can resist fire more easily, or just be a tougher enemy overall. I say this mostly because I absolutely love the design of the Abomination and want some way to have it more important than anything.

if anything, I think the Abomination should be the only source of this “light” goo, and also be the biggest and baddest of the flood pure forms.
If you asked me personally what I think, 343s new design for the flood is great, but we must keep the principles and designs of the flood in tact before we dive into new territory.

In short, the flood is great here, but the red sensory organs need to return, ALL flood units need to have some sort of rough fleshy design, rather than some just literally being giant worms (they should always look back to the Halo 2 anniversary cutscene of the gravemind for this), and only the new, big bad ones like the Gorilla Spawner, and the Abomination should Have these light sacks, cause it’d be VERY weird and annoying to see this on Brutes, on Flood Spores, anywhere but where they’ve been put here.

Im only agreeing to keep the light sacks cause you persuaded me, haha, it’s cool, it’s creative, and deserves to stay, just keep it out of the units we already know and love.