Agreed. Would I like to have control over crossplay being on or off? Absolutely. I don't think there's any particularly good reason for players not to get that option.

That said, I've played A LOT of Halo Infinite...like, seriously...a lot. I can count on one hand the number of times I've played a match and even wondered about whether a certain player was on PC or not. A matchmaking system that doesn't constantly put people on my team who play like they don't even know how to move and shoot at the same time would do a lot more for me than the ability to remove PC players from my games.

I'm not sure if UNSC know but Zeta Halo specifically is also worse than all other Halos because it can do directional firing, other Halo's can't pinpoint a target, they just fire and destroying everything in their radius but Zeta Halo can specifically target stuff, essentially it's a Death Star on a massive scale.

This shows how little I know about Halo lol. I didn't know these rings could fire... But why. Oh nvm, just enjoying the game play. Nothing like Larry Niven's Ringworld saga then! I feel for the Banished, damn masterchief messing things up :) Just leave my cute grunts alone :p

Destroying so much green living space just feels wrong, game or not! It makes me feel I'm playing for the wrong side haha. At least the death star was an ugly giant resource hog, basically a corporate office building 'gun'. Plus some directional firing would be needed to fend of asteroids.

This shows how little I know about Halo lol. I didn't know these rings could fire... But why. Oh nvm, just enjoying the game play. Nothing like Larry Niven's Ringworld saga then! I feel for the Banished, damn masterchief messing things up :) Just leave my cute grunts alone :p

Destroying so much green living space just feels wrong, game or not! It makes me feel I'm playing for the wrong side haha. At least the death star was an ugly giant resource hog, basically a corporate office building 'gun'. Plus some directional firing would be needed to fend of asteroids.

Do a single playthrough of Halo: Combat Evolved. That game will tell you everything you need to know about Halo rings :) but then again, you'll want to know what happens throughout the remainder of the campaigns lol so maybe just go through Halo MCC!

Sounds like you need a little back story lol. The Forerunners created the Halo rings to combat the Flood. That was the big mystery in the 1st game when you figure out that activating the Halo ring would kill the Flood, but the only way to truly get rid of the flood is to destroy their food source ie to exterminate all sentient life within the Milky Way galaxy. 

I didn't know Zeta Halo could target specific locations. No wonder Cortana and The Banished want to control it. 

I'm guessing the flood is not the result of global warming :p Sounds like the menace from Hamilton's Pandora's star. 'MorningLightMountain' that's a serious threat to the entire universe. Great sci-fi.

It's been 20 years since I played that... Plus I never finished it as I got bored with the middle bit.

Maybe I'll pick up the books some time. I'm into Peter F. Hamilton for now, reading the Neutronium Alchemist atm. Now that's a dilemma and worthy foe. His work is suitable for numerous awesome Sci-fi games.

Well since the info has been let loose lol yeah the Flood have been around for eons in the Halo universe, with the Forerunners having a war with the Flood for centuries, but realizing the only way to stop them is to wipe out all of sentient life. They're ugly parasitic organisms and able to take hosts from any living being, alien or human. In Halo CE, there was this great scene halfway through the game where Master Chief, still not knowing the purpose of the Halo ring, finds a room of dead marines. He takes a recorder from one of their helmets, inserts it into his helmet, and you get a first person view of these marines getting swarmed by the Flood. It's straight out of a horror movie lol because prior to that point, there was absolutely nothing alluding to the Flood. The name Flood is very accurate too as they come at you in insane waves!

So with Infinite being on a Halo ring, the Flood has to be involved in some capacity at some point. Also, fun fact, the little floating robot head that guides Master Chief that has these funny quips and wants to fire the ring is named 343 Guilty Spark, which is where 343 Industries got the studios name :)

I'll try to do a brief summary from what I remember, Halo is filled with a massive amount of lore, Lol. If you want to know all about Rings/Flood/Forerunners then I would recommend reading The Forerunner Trilogy, if you don't mind a brief summary of events I'll try to provide one below.

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The Flood is a parasite, infects anything with a central nervous system and spreads across the Galaxy consuming everything, they were unstoppable and at the peak of their power were having galactic battles with Forerunners, Forerunners had no other choice but to create the Halo array and fire it, doing so would kill all life in the Galaxy but stop The Flood.

Forerunners survived by staying on The Ark, The Ark is where the Rings are created and situated just outside of the Galaxy so it's out of range of the Halo array, before firing they gathered species across all the Galaxy and after firing, put them back onto their planets then the remaining Forerunners left, though at that point I think the Forerunner species is essentially extinct, I think the remaining ones left believing they failed the Galaxy and hoping for Humanity to do better.

Forerunners were created by a species called Precursors, for some unknown reason, Forerunners at some point in history turned against their creators and wiped them out, nobody knows why but the Precursors were driven to extinction, except from a few, those remaining few altered themselves into organic particles, hoping to one day re-form into their original Precursor form but some became defective, eventually being the spores called The Flood.

There's something called a Gravemind, sorta the central intelligence for The Flood, like how Ants have their Queen who guide them, Gravemind's are formed when there's enough biomass for The Flood, then the Gravemind takes control, Gravemind is highly intelligent and basically knows everything of the creatures it consumes.

There was a prisoner that the Forerunners captured, he called himself The Primordial/The Timeless One, he was interrogated by Humans who he drove insane with his answers, Forerunners later interrogated him and he then claimed to the Forerunners that he was in fact the last surviving Precursor and the first ever Gravemind, driven by revenge.

The Forerunners killed The Timeless One by accelerating the time-space in his prison but that only stopped his physical form because it is later revealed that every single Gravemind is the same, they all have the same memories and motives, twisted over time, essentially the Gravemind we see in Halo 2/3 is The Timeless One from millions of years ago, he somehow managed to pass his consciousness into all Graveminds.