The Evolution of Halo's Flood | Let's take a look at every version of the Flood

Back in 2001, the Flood were introduced about halfway through halo CE’s campaign and were praised as one of the cleverest twists in a shooter at the time. Not only were they a narrative twist, shifting the sci fi tone to a more body horror tone, they also flipped the gameplay on its head by introducing a new enemy faction. The flood were one of the main driving forces of the story in the original trilogy and even after it concluded, further media and games expanded on them and their shadow hangs over the Halo universe. Both in and out of the universe, the flood have evolved since their introduction, I think its worth looking at them over the years and seeing how they've been interpreted and handled by the various authors and artists over the years.

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Gamertag: LateNightHalo

[LateNightHalo]

Huge thank you to the Ex Bungie developers and 343 developers who talked to me about the behind-the-scenes development choices with the flood!!

I wanted this video to be a bit different than a standard lore video. What’s something interesting that you learned?

[dragonborn]

press f to pay respects to the legends that didn't see rocket flood before they shot.

[ultra-nationalistodst]

The biggest mystery in the Halo universe is how can combat forms use pump-action shotguns with only one hand

[deepfriedlettuce]

The flood_captain tag may have just been a reference to Captain Keyes, as in flood captain Keyes instead of a flood variant

[andrewf]

LateNight Subs: "What is it? More weapon evolution vids?"

LateNight: "Worse..."

[brucesshipyards]

*The Gravemind aged like a fine wine*
-Late Night Gaming

[SerathDarklands]

1:30 - It's funny that you should mention that, because in the _Halo: The Flood_ novel, that's one of the Master Chief's first thoughts when he sees a human Combat Form, which he quickly discards when he remembers that the first Combat Forms he saw were modified Elites.

[Dave_Chrome]

Who else shot off their arms and tried to save an army of Flood friends to the end of the level?

[mr.brightside]

The flood have 4 stages:

The feral stage, where the flood depends completely of other living things and they’re highly dangerous without a pattern or order to guide them. That is the stage observed in halo C.E.

The coordinated stage, in which they have managed to develop a gravemind that guides them and the troops are more intelligent and tactical. The stage observed in Halo 2 and the most common stage of the flood.

The interstellar stage, the flood have learned to control or build ships that can travel in space and also have the ability to reproduce themselves. Stage seen in halo 3 and also the stage where the forerunner turned on the rings at that time.

the fourth and final stage has never been reached, but it is the transgalactic stage; In which the flood have assumed complete control of the galaxy, have supreme technology and must travel to other galaxies to expand their power.

Curiosities of Halo...

[mcmumbles]

The Evolution of the Needler would be nice, as it's one of the most frequent weapons available across all of the games

[cookedfish]

I will say they did a great job with remastering the gravemind in H2A

[LovusEternius]

The name of the File was most likely Flood_Captain because Captain Keyes was in it... and he was a flood by the time you reached him.

[spaceangelmewtwo]

"I? I am a monument to all your sins." Such a chilling line.

[pajamas]

me: "lol the flood is like an alien zombie thing right? this will be easy."
*sees ranged combat forms*
"huh. theyre kinda smart. im sure this is as bad as they get, right?"
*they can wield shotguns and rocket launchers*
"can this get any wor-"
*they can control vehicles and form graveminds*

[fredjones]

"What's important is they've been contained, and are no longer a big threat."


*laughs in Halo Infinite*

[timseay]

Can we see the Evolution of the Marines? Or perhaps the Elites?

[vlsparrowlv]

The flood were so terrifying to fight as 9 year old me

[mackenchiez]

15:42 A jaunty tune plays as a man snaps his own neck to avoid the pain of being infected by a galaxy destroying parasite

[Trollo_Swaggins]

I like to think that the Bioluminescence seen in HCE was due to the flood being trapped in darkness for so long, and they adapted towards that end. This is why some of the flood from Halo Wars 2 are glowing since they were trapped inside the dark insides of High Charity

[KillerOrca]

I always remember the big Flood thing being called a "brain form". And then at some point they confirmed it was a proto-gravemind.