Halfway Plot Switch

Going from wanting some cake to an intergalactic war in the span of 11 minutes is pretty regular for this show.

"This is stupid. Let's do a different plot."

— Joel Dawson, Bonus Stage

A typical plot structure is Two Lines, No Waiting, where two mostly unrelated plots occur simultaneously. A Halfway Plot Switch, on the other hand, features two mostly unrelated plots that occur one after the other, linked by a rather tenuous chain of events. As such, the start of the episode will often have close to nothing to do with the ending. This is frequently caused by a Conflict Killer. Not to be confused with a Malignant Plot Tumor, where the supposed B-plot (or even C-plot) gradually eclipses the A-plot.

If the plot switch occurs while wrapping up the story, it's a Gainax Ending. A Sacrificial Lion may fail to survive the switch. Can seem similar to First Law of Tragicomedies, but that only applies to a specific change in tone (comedy to tragedy), where the plot is unaffected. If the Halfway Plot Switch involves the work becoming darker or scarier, a Gut Punch may be involved.

Compare Developing Doomed Characters (which is about the time spent examining the mundane lives of the characters before something extraordinary happens that starts the "real" story) and Batman Cold Open (where the opening events not connected to the main plot are resolved before it begins). See Two-Act Structure when the two parts are narratively connected but differ in their mood. Contrast Working the Same Case. Compare and contrast Mid-Season Twist, which typically marks the end of the first act or even earlier.

May overlap with Genre Shift. Often the switch itself is a Wham Episode.

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Animation

In BoBoiBoy, in the episode "Mornings with Mr Probe and Adu Du", a serious storyline from the previous two episodes, involving Fang and Ochobot, is resolved early. Once that ends, Probe comes up with a new and unrelated scheme involving him and Adu Du hosting a talk show to fill the rest of the episode.
Garb Age (Taiwan): The first half of episode 5 is Shintan making an inedible (not to himself) cake for Bobo’s birthday; the second is Bobo getting revenge on him for this by making him go through grueling (if Played for Laughs) weight-training.
Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Joys of Seasons episode 99 starts out being focused on Wolffy Playing Sick to avoid her wife's wrath after his attempt to catch a goat falls flat. Once Wolnie discovers Wolffy is faking his ailment and leaves with Wilie, the plot switches to being about Wolffy having to hide Pink Fox from Wolnie when she pays a visit to Wolf Castle.

Anime & Manga

Attack on Titan goes from an After the End story about the last remnants of humanity fighting for survival against hulking giants to a war story with about the protagonists fighting an invading empire (turns out they weren't the last of humanity after all) with more of a focus on politics and world-building.
Cromartie High School: This is a favored tactic, often combined with Random Events Plot or What Happened to the Mouse? Rarely will anything actually be resolved. One episode, for example, ended with:
Narrator: Will anyone learn Hokuto's Lackey's name? (second plot) What will happen with the Boss Championship? (first plot) Many questions will be answered in the next episode of Cromartie High School...and many will not. We hope you'll join us then.
Dragon Ball Z's Cell Saga has this combined with a serious case of The Big Bad Shuffle — after a fake out with Freeza coming back to Earth (only to get on the bad side of The Worf Effect), the main plot seems to be the Kid from the Future Trunks coming back in time to prevent Dr. Gero, a scientist who worked for the Red Ribbon Army, from unleashing a pair of deadly androids in revenge for the Red Ribbon Army's defeat, which caused the apocalypse in Trunks' timeline. Dr. Gero and another android show up and put on a terrible showing before Gero is unceremoniously killed by the two androids who caused Trunks' Bad Future... who don't actually have any interest in destroying the world this time. Then Cell shows up with his own goals, leaving the 'Dr. Gero's Revenge' plot thoroughly by the wayside except by the very end, when Cell inadvertently ends up killing Goku during his attempted Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum as per Dr. Gero's original goal, and then attempts to blow up the Earth once he comes back from that.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure:
- Diamond is Unbreakable: The initial start revolved Josuke and the others searching for Akira Otoishi after he stole the Stand Arrow. Later, the group gets involved in tracking down Yoshikage Kira after they learn he's the town's hidden Serial Killer once he goes into hiding.
- Golden Wind: The story starts off with Giorno, Bucciarati, and the team protecting Trish from assailants while on-route to their destination. Then, the team defects from Passione to search for The Boss's identity and find a way to defeat him.
- JoJolion: The first half of the story is mostly concerned with Josuke trying to find out his true identity. When this gets resolved, the plot switches to Josuke and allies trying to obtain the New Locacaca from the Rock Humans in order to cure his ailing mother.
Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha starts out with a standard Monster of the Week formula with Nanoha's primary goal being the collection of the Jewel Seeds. Once Fate appears, the Monster of the Week formula is abandoned, and the Jewel Seed hunt becomes more of a secondary goal to Nanoha's attempts to get through Fate's cold exterior.
Pokémon: The Original Series:
- The first half of "The Song of Jigglypuff" focuses on the group trying to help Jigglypuff learn how to sing. This issue is solved early on, with the rest of the episode spent on trying to find someone who can listen to Jigglypuff's whole song without falling asleep.
- In the Johto episode "Grin To Win", Ash & Co. try to figure out why Sonrisa's Sunflora, Sunny, whom she planned to enter in the Sunflora contest, is so gloomy. It's eventually revealed that Sunny is depressed because it misses another Sunflora it used to play with. Sonrisa is able to track down that Sunflora and once the two Sunflora are reunited Sunny becomes happy again and is ready to enter in the Sunflora contest.
Osamu Tezuka's Undersea Super Train: Marine Express is at first about investigating a murder and uncovering a corruption plot connected to the titular train, then once that's resolved halfway through the characters are whisked away to the mythical Mu Empire and the story becomes about opposing its tyrannical ruler.
The manga and anime of Soul Eater starts with the main characters capturing 99 souls and 1 witch's soul so any of them can become the new weapon of Lord Death, who is basically the Grim Reaper... too bad! Witches eventually become actual antagonists, and that goal is set aside completely to defeat them. The manga eventually circles back to its original goal, while the anime has an original ending that forgets it.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: The first half or so is about the heroes fighting to free the world from the villains keeping everyone underground. The second half is about them actually trying to govern the world they've just liberated, which turns out to be harder than they thought until their true enemy arrives to destroy the planet.

Comedy

"Buck Buck", one of Bill Cosby's routines from his stand-up days. The first half is about Buck Buck, a game in which one group of kids gets jumped on by another and tries not to fall down (Bill's team is good on defense, but their real secret weapon is Fat Albert). It then segues into a story about young Cosby and Fat Albert getting scared by their friends with the help of a Frankenstein statue. Originated the line "I told you that story to tell you this one", which has become a stock phrase sometimes used as a Lampshade Hanging.

Comic Books

Supergirl:
- Supergirl's Greatest Challenge: After the three first pages, the plot changes from Supergirl trying to protect her secret identity from Midvale's Superman fans and other interlopers to answer the summons of the Legion of Super-Heroes and travel to the far-future to fight a cosmic horror and bust a scheme to destroy the Legion.
- The Untold Story of Argo City goes from Linda Danvers paying a visit to the Midvale Orphanage (her former home), wherein she gives a speech as averting Dick Malverne's suspicions about her identity, to investigating the fate of her parents and her hometown Argo City.

Comic Strips

Calvin and Hobbes:
- A story had Calvin and Hobbes creating their G.R.O.S.S. club and then accidentally pushing Calvin's mother's car out of the garage, leading to the duo running away from home.
- In another arc, Calvin is trying to do his homework when gravity reverses, causing him to get stuck on the ceiling. Just after everything reverts to normal, he starts to grow bigger and bigger until he falls off the Milky Way Galaxy. As he puts it, "this has been a very peculiar afternoon." The 10th anniversary special has Watterson admitting that the story was "weird for weirdness' sake".
- Another story arc had a variation of this; Calvin and his parents go to a wedding for presumably a friend of the mother, but Calvin accidentally leaves Hobbes behind and gripes about it throughout. But when they return home, the family is horrified to learn their house had been broken into and robbed. The parents are visibly shaken by the robbery, while Calvin gets scared that Hobbes may have been stolen, but after he's found under Calvin's bed covers, Calvin quickly goes back to normal, but the plot now focuses on the parents dealing with the robbery. And then it ends with Calvin complaining about the TV having been stolen.
FoxTrot uses this sometimes.
- One 1995 story had Jason entering a chess contest with Roger and winning $50, thus turning the story into Jason using the money to taunt his siblings. Then, the plot shifts to Jason spending all his money on 5,000 gumballs, which he eats all in one weekend. THEN, the plot shifts to Jason getting his first cavity as a result of eating all the gumballs, before finally leading up to Jason's first dentist visit.
- Probably a bigger one occurred in 1999, with a big story of Roger going on a business trip out of state, then returning home to find Jason in stitches following a Hot Wheels accident. After two days focusing on Jason and his stitches, the plot switches to Roger quitting work to spend more time with his family. He then gets scammed out of $199.99 in an infomercial. He then tries trading stocks on the Internet and winds up losing $11,000 in the second hour (after earning $3,000 in the first hour). After everyone at Roger's work goes crazy without Roger there to mess things up, he gets his job back. However, Roger sold the family computer after losing the money in the stocks, so the plot finally goes to Andy buying the iFruit.
A Heart of the City seven-week arc started with Dean mourning the end of Star Wars and ended with Heart dreaming she was in summer school.
Peanuts: A 1976 storyline has Snoopy determined to play tennis at Wimbledon, which he believes is near Kansas City. When he gets to Kansas City he becomes more concerned with finding his sister Belle, and the whole Wimbledon thing drops away. Lampshaded when he laments "And now I can't even remember why I'm wearing this stupid tennis visor!"
The Turner the Worm story "Mighty Morphin' Flower Arrangers" started out as a parody of Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, but switched to being a parody of Doctor Who about a third of the way in. Supposedly this was the result of the strip's creator, Paul Rose having started the story before actually watching any episodes of Power Rangers, and when he did eventually watch one, he found it too ridiculous to even attempt to parody.
The Wacky Adventures of Pedro often did this for storylines that ran longer than a few months. One Wacky Adventure lasted from August 2001 all the way to March 2005 just because the cartoonist kept changing the plot (though each story does flow into another relatively well).

Fairy Tales

Franz Xaver von Schönwerth's "The Glass Mountain" starts off with a goldsmith reneging on his pledge to marry his son to a farmer's daughter, and the farmer sending his son after the goldsmith and his would-be daughter-in-law. Then he runs into a witch who promises to help him meet the princess of the Glass Mountain, and the whole family feud is forgotten.

Fan Works

Godzilla fanfiction Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): At around Chapter 7-9, the story switches: from a weakened San and Vivienne being held captive by an evil organization in a claustrophobic Elaborate Underground Base, plotting their escape with a very limited set of options and unfamiliar allies; to a freed and healed Viv and San preparing to fight unnatural monstrosities for the fate of the world alongside a much more familiar range of allies.
The Hetalia: Axis Powers fanfic The Joyous One has two. The first third of the story deals with Feliciano trying to get Ludwig back home and him recovering from his First-Episode Resurrection. The next third of the story deals with Ludwig (now Monika) coming to terms with her trans identity. The last part of the story becomes a Coming-Out Story as Monika explains the situation to her parents, and they try to find a place where they can all live together.
The Zootopia fanfic A New Dawn is initially about Dawn Bellwether seeking revenge after escaping prison. However, she is caught and thrown back in jail early on, and the rest of the story is about her relationship with Gideon Grey, and how he slowly helps her realize the error of her ways.
The KPop Demon Hunters fic "Sweet (and Not So Sweet) Torture" starts with Rumi learning that Mira and Zoey are in a relationship and looking to add her to their dynamic, the three engaging in various flirtatious behaviour that escalates when Rumi learns what they were doing and decides to have a bit of fun deliberately provoking the others into making the first move. However, after the relationship becomes official, the trio discover evidence of the Purifiers, a group of humans aware of the existence of demons who set out to torture and convert or kill any demons they encounter... with half-demons such as Rumi being particular prizes as far as they're concerned.
The Loud House fic Thicker Than Blood starts out about Lincoln (and the younger Loud sisters) learning he is adopted and dealing with the emotional fallout of that. But they more or less get past this less than ten chapters in. Then Lincoln's parents reveal that he has a twin sister, Linka, who got adopted by another family and the rest of the story begins.
The Harry Potter fic Torn Apart World has a downplayed version of this. The first half is a straight hurt/comfort fic without much plot. Halfway through, Craig sets his impersonation plot into gear and Snape has to figure out what's going on. It remains very much hurt/comfort though.

Films — Animation

Coco: For the first 20 minutes, it's a cute story about a kid who just wants to be like his musical idol, despite his family's wishes. Then he strums on a stolen guitar, and it becomes a Race Against the Clock.
Freddie as F.R.O.7 is a definite example. The story begins in medieval times where a king and his young son Frederick (whom he blessed with magical abilities) live in a beautiful castle alongside Frederick's aunt. Frederick's mother was lost at sea so he spends all of his time with his father. During a horse ride, a snake spooks the king's horse. He falls and dies instantly. Shortly afterwards, Frederick realizes that it was his aunt who spooked the King's horse. She tries to kill him but ends up turning him into a frog instead. He escapes and she vows to find him. The narrator goes on to say that Frederick lived life among other frogs...and then used his powers to travel through time to the United Kingdom and become a secret agent. The rest of the plot focuses on Freddy trying to solve a mystery with his human team Scotty, and Deffers. The only cohesion comes from the fact that Freddy's aunt is the Big Bad having apparently gotten bored of ruling the kingdom for which she killed Freddy's family in the first place and teamed up with an overweight evil man to steal monuments instead.
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh: The first half of the Honey Tree chapter focuses on Pooh wanting to get some honey from the bees; most of the rest of the short focuses on him getting stuck in Rabbit's hole and being forced to wait until he loses enough weight to be pulled out.
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse: Despite what the marketing implies, most of the movie involves Miles' everyday struggles with his civilian and superhero identities. Almost half the film is done by the time Gwen and the multiversal aspects return.
Tom and Jerry: The Movie starts off as an hour-and-a-half-long Tom and Jerry cartoon. But when Puggsy shows up, things start to go downhill. Most of the rest of the plot is about helping a Heartwarming Orphan escape her Rich Bitch aunt and find her long-lost Adventurer Archaeologist father.
Puggsy: The name is Puggsy. What's yours?
Tom: I'm Tom.
Jerry: I'm Jerry.
Both: [Gasp!] You talk!

Literature

The first part of Alouette's Song is a techno-thriller about the discovery of a potential means of Faster-Than-Light Travel and the subterfuge from a secret government agency that wants to suppress it. At almost exactly the halfway point, the starship is built, and the heroes beat the primary villain in space and are just about to apprehend him, only for them to accidentally enter warp drive and wind up embroiled in an interplanetary war on the other side of the Galaxy. The original Skylark Series was also split into a terrestrial and an extraterrestrial half, but when they first arrive in space there are several smaller vignettes before they encounter the aliens so that the Rising Conflict is more gradual. These scenes were cut out of Alouette's Song, and therefore the book reads like two separate stories with their own climaxes, told one after another.
The Bible has noticeably different frameworks between the books of the Old Testament and the New Testament: the Old Testament is mostly a series of vignettes about various different people (Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, etc.) who all just so happen to interact with God, whereas the New Testament has a clearly defined central figure in Jesus and covers the events that occurred both during and after his life.
In "Brainjack", the beginning is about a Cracker who ends up being hired by a government White-Hat hacker group after hacking the White House and a major telecommunications provider for a neuro-headset. The plot then brutally murders its previous self and becomes about a group of the hackers trying to subvert the neuro-headsets' Hive Mind from destroying them. Can also be considered a Malignant Plot Tumor.
Roald Dahl was quite fond of this trope, as these following stories of his illustrate:
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The first half deals with the drudgery of Charlie's life and the hunt for the Golden Tickets, whereas the second focuses on the five winners touring Willy Wonka's eponymous chocolate factory.
- Same goes for its sequel, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. The first half has the elevator and its occupants accidentally ending up in orbit and ultimately rescuing most of the crew of a space hotel from carnivorous aliens. Once the elevator returns to the chocolate factory, the second half has the three still-bedridden Bucket grandparents overdosing on reverse-aging pills that Willy Wonka invented, necessitating a journey far beneath the factory to rescue one of them. The events of the first half aren't brought up again until the last chapter.
- Matilda is in a similar boat: first focusing on the titular character growing up within an abusive household, before subsequently shifting to her life at school and confronting Miss Trunchbull.
- The first chunk of The Twits is vignettes about how horrible the twits are, particularly in their Awful Wedded Life. The second chunk is about the family of monkeys they've been abusing trying to escape.
Double Image by David Morrell: A photographer takes pics of something in Bosnia that really pisses off a bad guy. As soon as that plotline is resolved, said photographer becomes obsessed over a mysterious woman in some pictures he finds.
In the 13th book of Colin Thompson's series The Floods (called The Royal Family), a plot about a dog breaking another dog's heart and a resulting revenge plot is suddenly interrupted by a fourth-wall-breaking "interregnum" chapter where the more central characters say that they're absolutely sick of that story arc, and then the rest of the book changes to a plot about Betty Flood pursuing the throne of Transylvania Waters and the Ultimate Super Wizard Powers.
Friday the 13th: The Jason Strain starts off in the Deadly Game genre... then shifts to Zombie Apocalypse.
Because the orignial eight Japanese volumes of Girls Kingdom were turned into four longer volumes for the American release without sacrificing any content, the plot of each book switches roughly halfway through. For example, the first half of book two is focused on Kirara's successful attempt to become Kagura's seraph, while the second half is focused on Misaki's attempt to save Erisu's failing restaurant, along with some of Kirara's bragging about becoming a seraph.
Played with in Gone Girl. The novel is told from both Nick and Amy's perspectives. Nick is in the present day, trying to cope with being the main culprit in his wife's disappearance, while Amy's diary entries tell the story of a crumbling marriage. In the second half of the story, we learn that Amy's diary was a complete fabrication, all part of an elaborate scheme to frame her husband. From there, the story gets a little more interesting...
Hemlock & Silver: The first half is straight up medieval tale of mystery and political intrigue as the scientifically-inclined Anja is recruited to investigate the princess's health problems and likely poisoning. The second half delves into fantasy with the reveal of magical cause of Princess Snow's illness, a talking cat, and another dimension hidden inside mirrors.
The Host (2008) starts out being about an alien adjusting to life as a bodysnatcher, then devotes the entire second act to developing platonic and romantic relationships with the rebels, before focusing on saving the humans near the end.
Sidney Sheldon's If Tomorrow Comes is divided into three "books". Books One and Two, which take up a little over a third of the novel, tell the tale of Tracy Whitney's horrifying Break the Cutie experience when she's framed by the Mafia for a robbery and wounding, and how she gets her revenge on the guilty parties. In Book Three, her struggle to make an honest living while paroled from prison leads to her becoming a Classy Cat-Burglar who finds herself matching wits not only with European authorities but a fellow con artist. The main nemesis is an insurance investigator who briefly met up with her in Book One as part of his investigation of the false crimes; he becomes obsessed with tracking her down when his employer is besieged with claims for things she's stolen.
The Kneebone Boy starts with three kids dropped off at their aunt's house while their single-father goes out of town on business. Upon finding out their aunt is away on vacation, they go to a small town with a castle, where they find out about the legend of the Kneebone Boy, which says that the first-born child of the family who owned the castle would always be born as a deformed monster. The middle of the book sets up several intriguing plot threads which leave the reader guessing... then drops them all in the last few chapters without resolution to reveal that the castle is now a mental institution where the children's mom is.
The first half of The Lies of Locke Lamora is an extended con and heist. Then the B plot murders the A plot and takes over with a new villain and threat, along with a darker tone.
The first chunk of Little Star is effectively about Lennart and Leila raising Theres before she kills them. Then there's a significant chunk about Theres growing up, followed by a section on Theresa's life before the two finally meet around the midpoint of the novel.
The children's book Mandie and the Secret Tunnel starts out as a drama that turns into a mystery/treasure hunt midway through the story.
Madeline:
- The first half of the original book is just about the everyday lives of Madeline, her schoolmates, and Miss Clavel. Then suddenly Madeline is stricken with appendicitis and the rest of the plot revolves around her stay at the hospital.
- Madeline in London at first revolves around Pepito's unhappiness at having to move to London and leave Madeline and the other girls behind. But when Madeline and friends come to visit him for his birthday, the rest of the plot involves their misadventures with the horse they buy as a present for him.
- Madeline's Christmas starts out with Miss Clavel and all the girls except Madeline having colds on Christmas Eve and needing Madeline to take care of them, but then switches the focus to an Arabian rug merchant, who sells all his rugs to the girls only to get chilled without them, is nursed by Madeline, and then turns out to be a magician and makes his rugs fly all the girls home to their parents for the holidays.
Arguably used in Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow where a routine murder mystery trope dives off the deep-end into X-Files-esque killer bug from space about halfway through the novel.
The fourth book of The Orphan Train Adventures book, "A Place to Belong", starts off with Danny and his sister Peg - who have been sent by their widowed mother in New York City for adoption in the area of St. Louis - getting used to life with their new family and neighbors, as well as the failing health of the foster mother. After her death, the plot shifts to Danny trying to get his mother to travel to St. Louis and marry his father.
Tané's plotline in The Priory of the Orange Tree starts out like a Coming of Age Story about a commoner at a warrior school, struggling to prove herself against her snobbish rival and her own self-doubt to achieve her dream of becoming a dragonrider. She succeeds in her goals, and shortly after that, the decision she made on the first page of the book crashes back into her life and destroys it all. That launches her into the main plot of the rest of the book, which is about the eternal rage dragon that's coming back to dominate the world.
Raybearer opens with a typical YA plot: Troubled, but Cute teenage assassin develops feelings for a cute boy she's supposed to kill, and much angst is had. Then Tarisai succeeds in circumventing her orders about a third of the way through the plot, happily assimilates into the council her mother forced her to infiltrate, and helps them advance the nation's human rights. And discovers she is also an heir to the throne. Most notably, her relationship with the boy never has any romantic or sexual elements, nor does any sort of Love Triangle develop.
The Reader: The first third of the novel (Part 1) depicts the Age-Gap Romance between the teenager Michael Berg and the much older Hanna Schmitz. This part of the book details the relationship between them, pointing out the toxcity, so you are forgiven to think this is a romance novel about Forbidden Love. Then a Time Skip of seven years happpens, and Michael, now a soon-to-be-lawyer attends a process where he learns his former affair was an SS officer. The two remaining parts of the novel detail the process and Michael coping with the fact he slept with a literal Nazi, being about themes like fault and responsibility rather then the appropriateness of their relationship.
The Tawny Man trilogy starts out with a book about prince Dutiful's abduction by the Piebalds, with his upcoming betrothal to an Outislander princess a background detail. The Outislands plotline becomes more prominent in the second book and completely makes up the third book, while the Piebald storyline becomes less prominent and is ultimately resolved off-page in the third book.
Neal Stephenson's REAMDE does this in a big way. It starts off with Russian mobsters abducting a girl and several other people who were unwittingly involved in the mob losing millions of dollars to Chinese hackers. After getting dragged to China with the Russian hit squad, the girl gets abducted by Jihadist terrorists in the apartment one story above the hackers. The rest of the story involves various friends, family and government forces trying to stop the terrorists and rescue the girl.
Room is about a woman who was kidnapped as a teenager and gave birth to a son while in captivity. The child, Jack, thinks that their prison (or 'Room', as he calls it) is all that exists in the world, while his mother tries to enforce these beliefs for him, although dire circumstances eventually force her to tell the truth. Then they escape, and the rest of the story is about the two of them trying to adapt to the real world after everything they've gone through.
The first half of Spellbinder revolves around Thea struggling with her realization she's falling in love with Eric (she's a witch, he's human; Night World law forbids them from being together) and trying to stop Blaise from making him her latest plaything. Then around the midway point Thea accidentally calls forth the spirit of a Vengeful Ghost trying to protect Eric, and the plot becomes more focused on Thea trying to stop the ghost. Blaise is still a bit of a threat, but is quickly overshadowed by the far more dangerous Suzanne and Blaise actually helps Thea in the end.
Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land starts out mainly with a plot about Valentine Michael Smith's (the human raised as a Martian) land rights to Mars, but then this issue is resolved with surprising ease, and the plot transitions to be primarily about Smith creating a religion and becoming a Messianic Archetype.
Throne of Glass: The series starts out focusing on a teen assassin who is forced to work for an evil king to gain her freedom and reluctantly gets involved in the rebellion against him, as well as getting into a love triangle between the king's much nicer son and the captain of the royal guard. Then after the fourth book it switches to a long-lost princess (the assassin's true identity) fighting demonic overlords to reclaim her throne, with the evil king being revealed to have been a mere puppet.
The Twilight Saga: In New Moon, most of the book is devoted to Bella recovering from Edward leaving her, finding out about the werewolves, and the werewolves hunting for Victoria. Suddenly, the climax of the novel goes to being about Edward planning to commit suicide via the Volturi, and Bella and Alice having to save him. In Eclipse, most of the story is devoted to the Bella/Edward/Jacob love triangle, and only gives focus on the matter of the vampire army and Victoria near the end of the book. In Breaking Dawn, the first two sections of the book (as well as a bit of the start of the third) are focused on Bella and Edward marrying and her having and raising her half-human daughter. Most of the third section is about the Volturi arriving to use Renesmee as an excuse to kill the Cullens, with flavors of a vampire conspiracy and the set up for an epic battle that never happens.
Watership Down starts out as a story about a rabbit who receives a premonition that his warren will be destroyed, so he and some other rabbits embark on a journey to find a new place to live. Halfway through, having found a new home, they realize they don't yet have all the resources they need to establish a real warren, so they try to find what they need and come into conflict with another warren ruled by a brutal tyrant.
Wuthering Heights is a famous example. The first half is a more-or-less conventional tragic love story (albeit with very morally ambiguous characters and a strange, mystical, brutally codependent emotional twinship in place of normal romantic love) between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, ending with Catherine's death. The second half takes place after a long Time Skip, focuses on the now-adolescent children of the previous main characters, and casts Heathcliff in the role of Evil Uncle, manipulating and abusing his niece-by-marriage, son and ward to complete his revenge on the Earnshaw and Linton families. The two halves are so distinct that most screen and stage adaptations easily cut the second half and only adapt the Heathcliff/Catherine love story.

Music

Tom Lehrer's song Poisoning Pigeons in the Park starts out as your typical ballad about the wonders of spring... and then in the first chorus suddenly moves on to being about, well, poisoning pigeons in the park.
- Also I Hold Your Hand In Mine which starts out like a regular love song but then reveals that the hand isn't attached to her body.
The Beatles' "A Day in the Life" is the ultimate Halfway Plot Switch song. Paul even confesses that the middle part was a piano piece that he was initially working on independently.
"Charming Weather" from Lionel Monckton's The Arcadians. It starts off obviously leading into a marriage proposal — until they realise they aren't alone, and it turns into banal smalltalk for the chorus. Unusual since, being music, it can do it all over a second time. YouTube has a rather badly performed recording of it.
Katrinah Jospehina by Universal Hall Pass. The first half of the song is the tale of a girl (the eponymous Katrinah) who decided to explore beneath the earth. The second half consists of a twisted, echoing beat accompanying backwards-sounding fragments of the lyrics. This change is never really explained, but it's heavily implied that Katrinah is either mentally ill or trapped in hell... or both.
Arlo Guthrie starts out "The Alice's Restaurant Massacree" by telling about how he was arrested for littering on Thanksgiving, but he switches halfway through to talk about going to visit the draft board. Eventually it all ties together.
Gorillaz's "Empire Ants" song, from the Plastic Beach album. It starts with 2D singing, backed by sweet almost lift-like tropical tunes. Then, full stop, and it starts what appears a new song, with electro-techno sounds, bass, and even new vocals, from guest artist Little Dragon. And it's awesome.
"Miserable Lie" by The Smiths seems constructed out of three separate songs, opening with a slow, gentle, serious introduction that seems to represent the end of a relationship. The song then turns on a dime to an uptempo number with a series of bitter, (yet comical) stream-of-consciousness lyrics. This shift in tone gets escalated to a manic level in the final part of the track, as Morrissey switches to a falsetto voice, howling about his perceived inadequacies in life and love. It can be argued that the theme of the lyrics stays constant, but then again, said theme is dominant in most of The Smiths' songs, as well as Morrissey's solo work.
The Good, The Bad and The Queen's song, Three Changes. It doesn't take a genius to see why it's named like that. The song starts and goes all well, up after the second chorus, and it switches to a Latin-like song, and later, it changes into a slower and minimalistic version of the first part. So there's only two changes?
The first half of Laserdance's 1995 album The Guardian of Forever is the same style as the previous two albums, but halfway through it undergoes a total Genre Shift to tech-trance.
David Bowie's "Cygnet Committee" starts with the singer bemoaning the intellectual passengers in his circle and shifts into a tale of that circle leading a Full-Circle Revolution.
Billy Joel's "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" switches tone and subject three times. The first and final sections are about the restaurant, or more accurately its wine list. This restaurant is not mentioned in either of the other two more upbeat sections, one of which is about a teenage romance that eventually turned into a failed marriage. Also, the original title was "The Ballad of Brenda and Eddie" (The two teens the third section is about), according to Word of God.
The song "A Fair Day's Work" from the Monty Python Oratorio Not the Messiah (He's a Very Naughty Boy) starts off as a silly song in which a man on death row praises the social benefits of capital punishment. Then he goes on about how everyone must pull their weight in society as part of the reason why capital punishment is necessary (this is where the title comes from), and then finally changes subject again to discuss what he did for a living before ending up being sentenced to die by crucifixion for unspecified reasons. Since the career in question was lumberjack and this was made by Monty Python, this naturally transitions into a monologue about crossdressing.
Scorpions "Coming Home" starts out as a soft acoustic ballad then about halfway through suddenly changes into full-on heavy metal.
5 Seconds of Summer's "She's Kinda Hot" starts out about a guy who's annoyed by his girlfriend but only stays with her because, well, "she's kinda hot". Then in the second verse, it randomly switches to being about the narrator's friend dropping out of college because he has "bigger plans", then for the chorus, it becomes an anthem of empowerment for losers and outcasts.
"Weird Al" Yankovic's song "Foil" begins as a cooking show parody about the benefits of using aluminum foil as a wrap. The second half is all about the conspiracy theories the singer believes in (Alien Abduction, Black Helicopters, The Illuminati, Mind Control, and Moon-Landing Hoax among them) and how a Tinfoil Hat will protect you.
Oh by the way, I've cracked the code...
In "Raspberry Beret" by Prince the first verse starts off by talking about the narrator's job at the store and his problems with his manager. Then the girl with the raspberry beret walks in and there goes that whole plot line.

Tabletop Games

Built into Betrayal at House on the Hill. The game begins with the players exploring a spooky old mansion. Eventually, one player will reveal the Haunt, at which point one player betrays the others, and the heroes have to complete some objective, with the traitor attempting to stop them.
Dungeons & Dragons:
- Adventure S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks starts off as a standard "clean out the monster-filled dungeon" scenario. After the PCs enter, they discover that the dungeon is actually part of a derelict spacecraft and they're fighting alien monsters armed with high tech weapons.
- The 5th Edition adventure Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus starts out with the players fighting an evil cult in Baldur's Gate, then has them have to go to the first layer of Hell to rescue the city of Elturel, which has been sucked into it. This is not a surprise to the players, given the name, but the cult's activities have absolutely nothing to do with what happened to Elturel.
After half the total turns in Fiasco have elapsed, an event called the Tilt occurs, which adds a bunch more conflict elements to the game. This has the effect of splitting the story into two halves — before the shit hits the fan, and after the shit hits the fan, so to speak. Good players also modulate their playing before and after the Tilt — before the Tilt, more gentle Character Development scenes and Anachronic Order are usually possible, but after the Tilt, characters with a Need should go from pursuing it to a big Jumping Off the Slippery Slope in pursuit of it, and everyone is expected to take more unpredictable, unreasonable and direct actions. The rulebook also notes that killing other characters before the Tilt is bad form.
A Lesser Shade Of Evil seems inordinately fond of this idea (non-GMs are asked not to even read the book's introduction), especially given that the "switch" happens during the first session. PCs are asked to make Exalted-esque demigods in a High Fantasy setting... only to learn during a centuries-spanning fast forward that there is no magic in this world, all their powers come from genetic engineering, the people who chose them for this duty are having a falling out, and the results of this falling out lead to an After the End setting in which the PCs have mastered a variety of scientific principles and must use them to help humanity cling to life. Whew.
Fantasy Games Unlimited's Year of the Phoenix. The players are told to create astronaut characters for a science fiction/space game. Partway through the first adventure, the game suddenly changes to an After the End saga in Soviet controlled America 200 years later (the astronauts are sent there Buck Rogers in the 25th Century-style).

Theatre

The play Done to Death. Act 1 is all about meeting the 5 lead characters and setting up their writing styles and the show's fantasy sequences. Then there is a sudden death at the end of Act 1. Act 2 is then all about solving the murders.
The first half of Edward III is a romantic drama, verging on romantic comedy, as King Edward attempts to seduce the Countess of Salisbury. When she refused him, he returns to the wars, and the rest is a standard war history play.
The first act of Hamilton is the story of plucky, incredibly intelligent revolutionary soldier Alexander Hamilton as he fights his way through the American Revolution. From "Yorktown" on, the second act follows Hamilton's rise to power in the new American government before his untimely death. Justified in that that's actually what happened in the life of Alexander Hamilton, but still, the two halves are so separate that four main/supporting characters can disappear from the show entirely, and four new main/supporting characters have to be introduced the moment they're gone.
The Magic Flute starts out as an apparent "rescue opera," where the heroic young prince Tamino and his sidekick Papageno set out to free the Queen of the Night's lovely daughter Pamina from the clutches of the "evil" Sarastro. But in the Act I finale, it's revealed that Sarastro is a benevolent high priest, while the Queen is the real villain. Act II then consists of Tamino and Papageno undergoing trials in order to be initiated into Sarastro's brotherhood and win the hands of the ladies they love, while Pamina is forced to choose between her mother and Sarastro once and for all, and then heartbroken because her beloved Tamino won't speak to her (which, unbeknownst to her, is part of his trial).
The Winter's Tale consists of a first half that is tragedy and a second half that is comedy. Much scholarly ink has been spilled over the exact relationship of the two parts. (Either way, 'Exit pursued by a bear' is around where the shift happens.)

Video Games

Zig-zagged in the first case of Ace Attorney Investigations 2: Prosecutor's Gambit. It begins with an assassination attempt on the president of a foreign country, with Edgeworth looking for the perpetrator. About halfway through, you find out that the president is fine, but one of his bodyguards has been found dead, shifting the case to a more traditional murder investigation as per the rest of the series. Then you learn that the assassination attempt was staged, and the murder plotline is put on hold until you can prove it. Afterwards, the murder plot resumes, but at the end of the case you find out that amidst the fake assassination, someone planned to kill the president for real, setting up a Sequel Hook for the next four cases.
Artificial Nexus: While the primary focus of the story for the first half is on Susan's Quest for Identity, she discovers who she is around halfway through the game. From there, the story focuses solely on helping Hank, who while previously present, was given less attention. Once Hank has been saved from his confinement, the plot changes yet again to a Timed Mission to stop the Big Bad.
Ben Jordan: Paranormal Investigator: The seventh game, The Cardinal Sins, starts off with investigating the murder of a priest, which then switches to investigating the Knights of Saint Anthony.
Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 does this so many times.
- The Soviet Von Esling level has the player, Oleg and Krukov defeating the Allies. Once that is done, Cherdenko will make the player attack Krukov.
- The Soviet Mt. Fuji level begins as a Baseless Mission with a lone conscript and his war bear killing The Emperor. They succeeds but the target is a decoy. Then it turns into a more conventional base building mission while they languish in prison until they get rescued.
- The Soviet Easter Island level goes from the player defeating the Allies to defending from the traitorous Cherdenko.
- The Allied Heidelberg and North Sea levels begins as naval escort missions before turning into base building ones.
Code Vein is initially about exploring the post-apocalyptic city of Vein, trying to solve the mystery of the Blood-Seed shortage/find a cure for Revenants' blood thirst; at exactly the half-way point, however, the former is solved and the latter is put on the back-burner as the protagonists discover a plot to resurrect the Greater-Scope Villain, and the plot becomes about preventing that to the exclusion of all else.
Criminal Case:
- Criminal Case: Pacific Bay: The Wastes starts with a rather simple chase plot to bring Frank and Karen to justice after they become runaways in the finale of the previous district... only for the player to find out that a bigger and much more dangerous threat in the form of Albert Tesla has begun his master plan of destroying the world, leading you to fight against him during the latter half of the district instead.
- Criminal Case: World Edition: While the first half of South Asia has the Bureau helping people in need during earthquakes, tsunamis, and virus outbreaks, the second half switches focus to a more serial stoyline involving the investigation of O.M. MediLab and guru Om Padmasana.
- Criminal Case: Mysteries of the Past:
  - Wolf Street loves doing these. While the Flying Squad initially arrives to the district to investigate the Rochester family, plans rapidly change when a financial crisis starts wrecking havoc in the district, which then turns into a hunt for a counterfeiting that has been distributing fake money to citizens, which then turns into trying to stop a scam from a fake company promising people to get them out of bankruptcy, which finally ends with solving the murder of a high-ranking politician who turns out to be Connected All Along with the Rochesters and The Con.
  - Although The Flying Squad arrives to Grim Chapel to investigate the Rochester's alleged Deal with the Devil, said Devil (actually an old man committing murders by disguising them as supernatural occurrences) gets exposed and arrested right in the middle of the district, which then focuses on investigating Gryphon Sanctuary and the illicit activities going on behinds its walls.
- Criminal Case: The Conspiracy: Similarly to Grim Chapel, Spring Fields begins with the police department arriving in search of Fornax, a member of Ad Astra responsible for burning the cornfields of Grimsborough as part of their Evil Plan. However, Fornax a.k.a. Julia Brine is promptly arrested halfway through the district, which then shifts focus to the police department having to deal with yet another member of Ad Astra: their old enemy Christian Bateman.
Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge begins with the Fortune Hunters feud against the Ragin' Cajuns. It then turns into a revenge plot when an unknown group kills Doc.
Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony: This game's Ontological Mystery goes all over the place. At first, the plot seems to involve "The Ultimate Hunt", where Ultimate students were hunted down by society, with the students of this game having faked their deaths, and the implication that the Deadly Game they're in has been organised by society to really kill them off. Later on, it turns out to be an After the End scenario, with meteors and disease ravaging Earth, and the students were on a Colony Ship to find a new planet, only to crash back to the ruined Earth. A bit later, it turns out to be a Stealth Sequel to the Hope's Peak saga of the original games, with Kokichi turning out to be part of the original Big Bad's cult. As it turns out, all of this applies In-Universe too, as The Reveal of the final case is that it's a "Truman Show" Plot, with the writers of the Danganronpa Immoral Reality Show changing the plot mid-way through the season to respond to events not going as intended (the sudden Hope's Peak twist was a way to get the others to team up against Kokichi, since he was a threat to the show's integrity). With said nature of the story revealed, it also means the final part of the plot throws out the previous storylines and focuses entirely on the reality show and the culture surrounding it (with implications that the mastermind might be an Unreliable Narrator).
Dark Souls starts out implying that the player is trying to cure the Darksign, but halfway through the game after ringing the Twin Bells of Awakening, the story switches from focusing curing undeath and instead about an Ancient Conspiracy and the Forever War regarding the First Flame. This event even has its own Sacrificial Lion.
Approximately half of Daughter for Dessert revolves around the protagonist and Amanda saving their diner, while the other half revolves around the wedge that Cecilia drives between the two of them, and the protagonist's attempt to clear up what really happened between Lainie and himself.
The Dig starts with the discovery of an asteroid on a collision course with Earth and the first minutes deal with NASA's mission to attempt to divert it; but later it turns out that the asteroid is in reality an alien spaceship which whisks away a group of astronauts to an alien planet, and it becomes a quest for exploration and survival.
Discworld Noir: You're playing as Lewton PI. The game starts out with a classic Film Noir situation of tracking down missing persons, getting implicated in murder and being pulled in different directions over a MacGuffin. Somewhere around the middle of Act 3 you uncover the linchpin and discover that you've just ended up in a Cosmic Horror story.
Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. The first half of the game focuses on Laharl's quest to claim his throne. After he succeeds, the second half, a Space Opera spoof, focuses on the human world. When the mastermind behind the invasion is revealed, it leads to a Rage Against the Heavens story, and the two stories intertwine together.
Doki Doki Literature Club! seems to begin as a Slice of Life Dating Sim where the protagonist reluctantly joins the literature club. The game starts with a Content Warning for disturbing images for a good reason, because the plot changes into a metafictional Psychological Horror game after Sayori is Driven to Suicide. After this, the game becomes a glitchy mess, the characters' backstories are revealed to be really dark, and the characters themselves begin turning into Yanderes.
Dragon Age: Inquisition does this early on. The game is initially about the war between mages and templars, but a meeting for peace talks is blown up, killing everyone present except the Player Character, and the magical explosion opens a permanent portal into the world of demons, letting them pour into the physical world. You have to choose between siding with the mages or the templars in order to seal the Breach. Once that's done, the person who caused the explosion appears, and they become the Big Bad for the rest of the game. This doubles with Prolonged Prologue since the events described are essentially "Disc One" of the game. Interestingly, the mage-templar conflict that the game initially revolved around never gets directly resolved. Whichever side you don't recruit gets corrupted by the villain and becomes his mooks, and the surviving uncorrupted members are too few to have a political voice. The whole issue is rather quickly forgotten about once the main villain shows up and is resolved by a mostly unrelated side plot.
In Dragonsphere, you play as the king of the land with your goal being to defeat the evil sorcerer Sanwe before he breaks out of his magical prison. You fulfill this goal halfway through the game. During your encounter with Sanwe you discover you are in fact one of a species of shapeshifters who was magically imprinted with the memories and personality of the king. Meanwhile a usurper tries to proclaim the king died battling Sanwe and ascend to the throne, so your goal now is to find out what happened to the real king.
Euphoria: It begins as an Ontological Mystery involving the characters finding themselves having to play a Deadly Game revolving around the designated "Unlocker" having to severely abuse the "Keyholes". Then, just as it looks like they've found a way to escape and the game is about to end, the group return back to their school — which has become a violent hellhole, and the second half is about them witnessing, partaking in, and suffering from the further atrocities being committed there.
Fable III: Your tyrannical brother is running the kingdom into the ground, so you gather some allies and incite a rebellion to depose him. The coup succeeds, you take the throne, and everyone lives happily ever... oh wait, there's an Eldritch Abomination on its way to attack the kingdom, and as the reigning monarch it's now your job to do something about it.
Final Fantasy tends to do this a lot, beginning the plot with the heroes rebelling against The Empire and escalating it to averting an Apocalypse How caused by an Omnicidal Maniac.
- Final Fantasy IV begins with a rogue knight rebelling against his kingdom when he realizes the monarch has gone mad with power and is trying to conquer the world. At some point, it becomes about fighting the monarch's airship general who wants to go to the moon to release the Sealed Evil in a Can there.
- Final Fantasy V begins with the heroes tasked to prevent the seemingly random destruction of the Cosmic Keystone Crystals that keep the world running. Then the Crystals are all destroyed, revealing the Big Bad they were used to contain, and sees the heroes travel to another world in an attempt to stop him from taking over.
- Final Fantasy VI starts off as a campaign against the Gestahlian Empire until halfway through, The Dragon becomes a god and destroys half the world, leaving you to recover your lost allies and destroy him.
- Final Fantasy VII begins with Cloud and AVALANCHE's brave struggle against the evil Shinra company executives, who are draining the life out of the planet to maintain an electricity monopoly. About five hours into the game President Shinra is killed and the Shinra's relevance to the plot is severely diminished, the focus then shifting to leaving Midgar to pursue Sephiroth across the planet and stop his scheme to summon Meteor and become a god.
- Final Fantasy VIII has its first two disks consist of Squall and the forces of SeeD battling Sorceress Edea and Rival Turned Evil Seifer as they use the country of Galbadia to try and conquer the world. The very first event after Disk 2 is The Reveal that Edea was just Brainwashed and Crazy, and the real antagonist is Ultmecia, a Sorceress in the future who wants to destroy the entire space-time continuum. That's in terms of the overarcing plot — otherwise focus from this point shifts to Squall searching for a way to get his comatose love interest Rinoa back to normal.
- Final Fantasy IX, the first part of the game focuses on Queen Brahne's conquest of the continent, the plot switch occurs when the party decides to go after Kuja, Brahne's weapons supplier, and he becomes the main antagonist when he promptly offs her at the end of the current disk. A plot switch then occurs a second time with The Reveal that Kuja is an alien from Terra sent by Garland to destroy the world, and Zidane was meant to be his successor and spiritually is his brother that Kuja abandoned on Gaia.
- Mostly averted in Final Fantasy X, where the overarching plot is always the pilgrimage to destroy Sin. Once Seymour is revealed as an antagonist, rebelling against Yevon and uncovering the secrets of the organization becomes another major plot point, but it never overtakes the fight against Sin as the game's focus.
- Final Fantasy X-2 has the first half of the game focusing on Yuna, Rikku, and Paine's adventures across Spira as they hunt for spheres while clashing with LeBlanc and her goons, who are also after the same things. The mood is very lighthearted. After Yuna's party takes back the sphere LeBlanc had stolen from them, the sphere reveals that a Weapon of Mass Destruction sleeps beneath Spira and is powerful enough to destroy the world. Not only this becomes the focus of the second half of the game, but the leaders of all three factions also go missing and fiends are pouring out from the temples. The situation is dire enough to convince LeBlanc to join Yuna's side and help her save the world.
The first Fossil Fighters game goes from you fighting the local Terrible Trio and their boss to a well-intentioned alien invasion, culminating in a fight against the Planet Eater that destroyed the Dinaurians' home, and the second game goes from you fighting the local Terrible Trio and their boss to fighting a near-immortal bodysnatcher.
In Golden Sun: Dark Dawn the children of the last two games' heroes go on a quest to investigate mysterious Psynergy sucking vortexes. This gets derailed by the appearance of villains, war-hungry countries, xenophobic semi-human cities, and so much else. After about a quarter of the game, you hear nothing more about them until the Mother of All Vortexes appears during the ending.
Guild Wars Prophecies starts off as the story of a war between the human kingdom of Ascalon and the Charr that's not going well for Ascalon. You leave Ascalon after the fourth mission, and most of the rest of the story is about a religious war in rival kingdom Kryta. After the first few quests in Kryta, Ascalon and its refugees are only occasionally mentioned, and even then only in passing. (Ascalon's King Adelbern lampshades this in the endgame area: "Maybe now that you are finished with this nonsense, you can come back to Ascalon and help deal with the filthy Charr infestation.")
Halo:
- Halo: Combat Evolved: The plot was a well-handled but ultimately rather generic "human Space Marines versus Scary Dogmatic Aliens" affair with a side order of "mysterious Precursors who might or might not become relevant to the plot sometime soon" for the first half, but then we got... The Flood. Bonus points for this not being revealed in advertising or the previews of a very high-profile game.
- Halo 2: The plot starts with the Covenant coming across Earth, which is a very big deal considering that this is the homeworld of humanity and the Covenant have glassed every other colony, except you are only there for a short time. Then, you end up discovering another Halo ring. The events on this new Halo ring eventually result in the Great Schism.
- Halo Wars: The plot starts with the defense of two human colonies, but eventually shifts to the discovery of a Forerunner Shield World, where humanity has their first encounter with the Flood.
- While the original Halo games (including Reach, the prequel game, and ODST, a Gaiden Game) generally had an overarching continuous plot, the newer games by 343 Industries (4, 5, and Infinite) each have a completely new plot with very little to do with the previous game. Halo 4 is about the return of the Neglectful Precursors, Halo 5 is about the start of a big Robot War, and Infinite completely skips the entirety of the Robot War (which was resolved off-screen) and is about fighting a Renegade Splinter Faction of the Covenant (who we were already introduced to in Halo Wars 2) on a new Halo world.
Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy: The story starts off as a journey to figure out how to undo Daxter's transformation. However, the party's goals eventually shift to finding the Sages and stopping Gol and Maia from destroying the world.
Jet Force Gemini: The game's story starts as an interplanetary Bug War, but when the Big Bad is defeated for the first time it shifts into The Great Repair to rebuild a spaceship and prevent the destruction of Earth.
The Last of Us Part II slowly eases into its switch. The game starts out as a revenge story, where you're playing as Ellie with a few brief segments playing as a new character, Abby, Joel's killer trying to avenge her surrogate father, Joel. Then halfway through the game, the point of view switches entirely to Abby, who is on a path of redemption. You eventually come back to Ellie at the end.
The first part of Lucky Dog 1 is about Gian and the rest of CR-5 attempting to escape prison. If they succeed, the second part is about Gian entering a romantic relationship with his partner of choice while simultaneously attempting to assert himself within the CR-5 hierarchy.
The whole Blorbs disease in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story. It was at the start an important issue alongside the whole 'Fawful taking over the kingdom' thing, but very quickly got dropped and rarely ever mentioned again (the last reference is how the Miracle Cure cured all cases of the disease in the kingdom, just as it smashes down the Dark Star barriers).
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2 starts with Nick Fury invading Latveria illegally, which leads to the Registration act coming into effect. A superhero Civil War breaks out... for three missions. Then it is dropped for The Fold, a sentient network formed from nanites injected into supervillains in order to control them. As the world descends into chaos, everyone, naturally, stops caring about whose side they are on, and both forces unite to defeat The Fold. Afterwards, the Registration Act is pretty much made redundant and void by the Government. Despite the fact that no one actually dies because of their conflict, and neither side really does anything incredibly bad to the other, Cap and Iron Man feel that their team won't be quite the same as it was before the war. But they still are happy to work with one another again.
Metal Gear:
- The mother of them all, Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. The player spends roughly the first two hours playing as Solid Snake, the protagonist from the previous game. Then the plot moves forward two years, to a different location, with the player in control of an entirely new character (ambiguously implied to be Snake for the first few minutes) for the rest of the game. The game's creator, Hideo Kojima, went out of his way to minimise the risk of anyone seeing this twist coming. Some thought the twist was brilliant. Some wanted Kojima's head on a stake.
- Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is about Big Boss rescuing 2 people from a naval base in Cuba, which is an apparent success until Militaires Sans Frontieres is destroyed. Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain is about his descent to villainy 9 years later, and the plot moves towards Afghanistan and Africa. It's subverted on the fact that you are playing Big Boss' Body Double while the Boss is too busy building Outer Heaven.
My Time at Sandrock starts off as a fairly sedate, slice-of-life story about a builder coming to help revive a dying town. Then the Wham Episode kicks in and all of a sudden the game shifts towards uncovering a foreign conspiracy to undermine, and later take over Sandrock, with the Builder still at the center of it all.
NieR Re[in]carnation's The Girl and the Monster's first half is this. The game starts out with a mute girl being escorted through a tower known as The Cage by a ghost known as Mama. The two of them go through statues that contain tragic stories of the cast, and after each arc, the Girl regains a piece of herself. Throughout the climb, the two meet a shadowy monster that follows them at every turn. It's after Chapter 6 that the game turns itself on its head: The Girl and the Shadow Monster, Levania, swapped bodies after he ate her dreams. All of this was a Redemption Quest, now wanting to return her body back to Fio, the girl. The second half of the story is a How We Got Here from his perspective.
Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath starts off with The Stranger as a Bounty Hunter who's earning money for an unspecified operation needed to save his life by capturing outlaws until he's finally captured and stripped of any upgrades he has. His captors soon find out that The Stranger is actually a Steef, a species that have been hunted to near-extinction and the operation is an attempt to transform him into a true bipedal creature. With this revelation, The Stranger is now hunted down by everyone, including the Clakkerz he used to do business with. However, he soon comes across the Grubbs, the oppressed indigenous population who worship Steefs and eventually takes up the mantle of their protector and fights to bring down Corrupt Corporate Executive Sekto. This affects the gameplay as well since although Stranger has now lost any health upgrades he previously bought, he later gains access to upgraded versions of his ammo and now that he is no longer a bounty hunter, he no longer needs to take enemies alive.
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Trials and Tribulations: The second case has you investigating a serial Phantom Thief instead of the usual murder. You successfully prove that the "ace detective" investigating the thief actually is the thief, and that your client was away meeting someone at the time of the latest theft. You get the "Not Guilty", everything seems to be over... then you're informed that the person your client was meeting has been found dead and they're arrested for his murder, setting up the second half of the case as you have to prove their innocence a second time.
Poptropica: Episodes 1-3 of Survival Island are pretty standard wilderness survival tasks: building a fire, catching a fish, and setting up a distress signal. Episodes 4 and 5 revolve around trying to save yourself from an Egomaniac Hunter in a Whole-Plot Reference to The Most Dangerous Game.
Portal starts off with apparently no plotline, apart from a computer that acts as The Voice, giving basic information about the tests and promising cake if the players finish puzzle after puzzle. Then it turns out this voice is an insane AI, who intends to kill you when the test is done.
The freeware Ristorante Amore is presented as a Dating Sim in which the player takes the role of a young woman working in the eponymous restaurant. When the prologue ends, however, the role of the game's viewpoint character changes to Pierre, whereupon it's revealed that all of the characters are actors on a planet called Erewhon fueled by feelings of love from the inhabitants of Earth, and they're staging a visual novel in order to encourage those feelings. Pierre isn't even really named Pierre; his name is actually Josh.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 starts out as a story about Spider-Man trying to stop the Sandman, which he succeeds at via a boss fight. This leads to Kraven the Hunter deciding to hunt Spider-Man after capturing Martin Li, also known as "Mr. Negative" from the first game. Eventually, the game gains a B-plot where an alien symbiote attaches itself to Harry Osbourne, giving him superpowers. The symbiote is later transferred to Peter, gradually turning him more and more into Venom. After a very long and winding story, Venom kills Kraven. And then everything to do with Kraven is completely dropped and the rest of the game involves fighting Venom and his army of symbiotes, who take over New York City and infect its residents.
Silent Storm starts as a World War II squad-based RPG, where you command a team of Allied or Axis specialists and conduct sensitive missions deep in enemy territory. Halfway through, you discover the existence of a SPECTRE-like organization that uses advanced technology like Energy Weapons and Powered Armor in order to get both sides of the war to devastate one another before swooping in and taking over the world. And yes, there are mods in existence that remove much of the latter part to be replaced by more of the former. Oh, and there's even an extremely rare Random Encounter with a Flying Saucer, where you can pick up a rapid-fire energy rifle.
The first half of Solatorobo: Red the Hunter is relatively lighthearted and revolves around dealing with sky pirates and sealing a monster, all in a world of animal people. The second half of the game revolves around the human precursors and apocalyptic origins of the world, while Red himself is revealed to be a Hybrid, and his father wants to kill all sentient life.
The Stealth-Based Game Spy Fiction (2003) starts off as a campy spy game about secret agents investigating a virus being made by a weapons manufacturer. Then these characters are all killed off and the last half of the plot is about fighting a terrorist who's disguising himself by wearing glasses and pushing his hair back who is the protagonist's brother who was probably created in a government soldier cloning project and then the protagonist's father (who is a secret agent turned terrorist and wears an eyepatch) shows up out of nowhere and the protagonist abruptly starts lecturing people about the meaning of war and... I guess they knew their audience.
In-universe example: In The Stanley Parable, the Narrator's story begins with all of Stanley's co-workers mysteriously disappearing, only to drop this plot thread completely when Stanley stumbles across his boss's secret mind control facility.
Two Star Ocean games feature this:
- Halfway into Star Ocean: The Second Story, the planet you're on (and its relevant prophecy) is essentially destroyed, throwing away nearly the entirety of the plot that preceded this event.
- Halfway into Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, you come to realize that the entire universe you live in is a computer simulation, pretty much throwing away the entire "war" plotline that had been going up 'till then.
Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds:
- Basic Training Campaign: Colonize Alaris Prime and train a militia to destroy an infestation of Gundarks—> Eliminate the Trade Federation presence on that moon.
- Gungans Campaign: Boss Gallo and Captain Marsune vs. Boss Rogoe in 3,000 BBY [[Time Skip—>]] Boss Nass vs. Trade Federation forces in 32 BBY.
StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty: Rebellion against Emperor Mengsk —> Save Kerrigan so she can get revenge on Mengsk and save the universe from an even bigger threat.
Steins;Gate is an example of how this can be used to great effect. The story has a Slow-Paced Beginning, revolving around Okabe accidentally inventing a time machine and gathering his friends to figure out how it works and perfect the design. The shadowy enemy organization, SERN, mainly lingers in the background while the focus is on Okabe trying to invent a time machine before they do. Once it is finally completed, however, the SERN agent M4 shows up, and things get serious when she kills Mayuri. From then on, SERN becomes a direct threat to Okabe. and the plot switches to him fighting against SERN while traveling through time to find a timeline where Mayuri lives, then saving Kurisu, and trying to avert two possible dystopian futures.
A staple of the Tales Series is a Wham Episode in almost the perfect center of each game that provides a sudden twist on its narrative. It's at this point that elements of whatever trope the game is examining starts to come to the forefront.
- In Tales of Symphonia, the first half of the plot is focusing on getting The Chosen One to complete the Journey of Regeneration to save the world. Then after she completes it, the game reveals that she becomes an Apocalypse Maiden for a second parallel world, at which point the game's themes of racism and discrimination come to the forefront, even meeting the Chosen One of this second parallel world.
- In Tales of Vesperia, the game starts with the main character on a journey to recover a stolen piece of technology from his hometown. That plot eventually gives way to a semi Government Conspiracy, and even that is resolved by the end of the first act. The rest of the plot consists of the protagonist becoming a Vigilante Man and an analogy for global warming, and the thief plot is never mentioned again. (Definitive Edition added a sidequest that lets you catch the thief and finally bring that plot to a close, but by then it's hardly relevant anymore)
Until Dawn plays out like a Slasher Movie involving a masked Serial Killer hunting down and capturing 9 college-age youths, killing them with elaborate Saw-like deathtraps. Then the killer is unmasked halfway through as the mentally unstable Josh pulling an elaborate prank on his friends in revenge for his two sisters' deaths. After that, the plot switches to a supernatural Survival Horror about hiding from the very real threat of the Wendigoes who haunt the mountain.
World of Warcraft's Vashj'ir zone. In the wake of the Cataclysm, a new island is formed several miles off the coast of Stormwind. Both factions begin sending troops, with the Alliance seeking to secure Stormwind's coast and the Horde wanting the island as a staging point for an attack. However, on the way there, the Player Character's ship is attacked and destroyed by the Kraken-like Ozumat, and from then on Vashj'ir is about helping the Earthen Ring fight Ozumat and the Naga. Exactly what happened to the island is never explained, and while you can travel to it, other than a flightmaster there's nothing there.
Xenoblade Chronicles 1 starts off as a typical revenge plot, with The Hero going on a quest to defeat the army of soulless robots that destroyed his hometown and killed his Love Interest. The Big Bad at this point is a Jerkass Humongous Mecha known only as "Metal Face". Eventually, it's revealed the Mechon aren't quite as soulless as you once thought. Metal Face is promptly dispatched, and his Well-Intentioned Extremist boss becomes the new Big Bad. Now the plot is still Man Versus Machine, but the focus has shifted from getting revenge on a villain to stopping a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds from betraying everything he once stood for. Once you confront and defeat him... Zanza, the real Big Bad reveals himself, and the plot shifts from Man Versus Machine to Man Versus Jerkass Omnicidal Evil God.
Xenogears: At first, the plot is about two nations that have waged war on each other for generations. Then, the plot changes to overthrowing Solaris, a hidden country which ruthlessly manipulates world events behind the scenes. After that, the plot switches to killing god (not the God, who is also in the game and apparently being used as an extremely long-lasting battery, but a sentient interstellar war machine that created humans on the planet to serve as its biological components).

Web Animation

Hanazuki: Full of Treasures uses this to dramatic effect in the first season finale, "Big Bad Sickness". The conflict alluded to in the title, that being Red Hemka suffering from a fatal disease he was afflicted with in the previous episode, is resolved halfway through. The remaining half spotlights Kiazuki's emotional turmoil that has been building up since the series began as she suffers a Villainous Breakdown, turns against her newly gained friends, and nearly undoes their hard-earned victory against the Big Bad.
The second series of The Most Amazing Story Ever Told starts off in a waffling fashion, with a child's action figure fantasy and recklessness with explosives somehow affecting life two million years later, but the fifth episode shifts focus to God finding out a strand of fate has been misplaced, with the following episodes elaborating on the story of that fate strand.

Web Comics

In the popular The Adventures of Dr. McNinja, an entire story arc (part 2 in a 4-part mega-arc) is based on this storytelling format, to the extent that it is called "I Told You That Story So I Could Tell You This One". The stories concerned are the titular main character's dilemma when every person he ever killed returns as a zombie to plague him, which leads into an exploration of his family and his sidekick's family when he leaves his sidekick to stay with them instead of bothering him.
When it began, Ciem was about how Candi was different from other girls. Then, it was about her sister being murdered. Then, it was about her going to college. Then, trying to find love. Then, it was about her sexual frustrations. Then it was about some guy in a shrew costume murdering everyone. Then, it was about her finding true love again.
Close to being standard practice for Mountain Time, such as here, when the plot switches to an entirely new set of characters in a completely different scenario, and much more pronounced in longer story arcs like this one.
YU+ME: dream . Starts out as a very typical Teen Drama and Slice of Life Coming-Out Story about a girl named Fiona who falls in love with another girl called Lia. The Wham Episode changes the plot, after Fiona finds out that the last six months of her life were All Just a Dream — and she's sent out of the Dream World by Sadako while Lia is captured by Sadako. Fiona finds her way back into the dream world and along with her conscience Mary, travels through the Dream World to try and get Lia back.

Web Original

What If? (xkcd): What would happen if everyone on earth stood as close to each other as they could and jumped, everyone landing on the ground at the same instant? After concluding that earth would continue to spin normally, Randall goes on to elaborate how our civilization would come to a halt and humanity would die out, not having any food or water supplies to feed even a fraction of the entire world population until they could get back to where they're from.

Web Videos

The Angry Video Game Nerd:
- The Nerd's review of Super Mario Bros. 3 starts with a normal review of The Wizard and SMB 3... until he starts pointing out satanic references in the game. After that... well... let's just say that all hell breaks loose. Literally.
- The Nerd's review of Pepsiman starts out looking like it's going to be a review of Yo! Noid. The Nerd goes into the Noid's backstory, then he prepares to play his copy of the game, which he gets from a litter box. Then Pepsiman shows up and transforms the game into the Pepsiman game (along with several other product-placement games the Nerd would rather review).
"Folding Ideas": "In Search of a Flath Earth" starts off as an examination of the Flat Earth society and how it has changed since interest in it peaked a few years before the video was released. And then in one line switches over to a video about Qanon.
Dan: The bottom line is that Flat Earth has been slowly bleeding support for the last several years...Because they're all going to Q Anon!
SuperMarioLogan:
- "The Burger!" initially starts with Junior and his friends playing baseball inside the apartment. Then Cody gets a home run and the ball falls behind the refrigerator. Then Junior and Joseph completely forget about the baseball when they notice the titular burger in front of it.
- "The Purge!" starts with Junior and his friends watching the news and being notified of the Purge, then Bowser finds out about the Purge and kicks Joseph, Cody and Chef Pee Pee out. This builds up into Chef Pee Pee and Brooklyn T. Guy teaming up to kill Junior.
- "Jeffy's Wifi Problem!" just so happens to be the most notorious example. Halfway through the video, Jeffy tries to call Brooklyn T. Guy in an attempt to get the WiFi password, only for Brooklyn to quickly forget about the password afterwards and con both Mario and Jeffy $800 out of a Foosball table. Worst of all, he gets away with it.
At first, the Scott the Woz 200th episode special, "Borderline Forever", just seems to be another instance of Scott talking about game graphics and box art design, up until he rants about the blue screen border in Super Mario 3D World's multiplayer, and openly wonders why it refuses to go away. And then he notices the video's own blue border. The rest of the episode sees Scott attempting to break free from the blue border and get rid of it once and for all.

Halfway Plot Switch
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Halfway Plot Switch
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