Halo 4 Grind Guides: Flood

This time around, let’s explore Halo 4’s Flood mode. While they’re not in the campaign, the Flood made their way into multiplayer, and they look pretty great.

What is it?
Halo 4’s Flood mode takes the fan-created favorite, Infection, and steps things up a bit with awesome new Flood character models for the Infected team, and an eye-gougingly bright yellow, HAZMAT-esque color scheme for the Spartans. Players starting as Spartans are charged with staying alive and killing as many Flood as they can, before their inevitable conversion turns them into infected killing machines themselves.

What can I work on?
All the loadouts in Flood, at least for the Spartans, give you a Shotgun and a Magnum for weapons, making this an easy place to grind either, especially the shotty. The Flood “claw,” while resembling a Plasma Sword in both its shape and its combat behavior, does not count toward Plasma Sword kills, unfortunately, but there are medals for killstreaks as a Flood that go toward one of the game mode’s own commendations, as well as racking up points toward a potential victory after the game’s three rounds.

Any other tips?
Camping will get you Last Man Standing medals as a Spartan, but it won’t get you the kills you need for an actual victory, unless you camp someplace that’s open enough that you’ll be approached, but safe enough that you can rack up a pile of Flood bodies at your feet. It’s up to you which way you want to go, as Last Man Standing status counts towards a commendation just as much as wins do.

Abilities are boosted across the board for those in Flood mode, including Armor Ability duration and strength. I mention this because one of the loadout AA options as a Floodie is the boost, which is insane, and can lead you off cliffs or other unsafe parts of the map if you’re not careful. Get used to it before you rely upon it too heavily.

I’m not gonna lie, Flood can be tough, especially for those more used to relying on respawns to keep racking up kills or to running and gunning rather than trying to stay safe, and its commendation spread only covers a relatively narrow, high-performance selection of medal earning, aside from basic kills and whatnot. Once you’re used to the maps and the weapon ranges, however, it’s not impossible to beast one’s way through match after match.