Its events occur aboard a massive colony ship, Goliath, whose inhabitants went to cryosleep while the vessel was travelling faster than light towards their home. However, the survivors suddenly awaken halfway into their journey, to find that the ship is now out-of-control and randomly changes direction every few hours, while its halls are taken over by the hostile cyborgs, most of whom were once fellow crewmembers. Luckily, a former space marine and current Goliath security guard Morten Lannis survived, and now it's up to him to locate the other survivors and assemble them into a squad that can reclaim the ship back from the horrors infesting it.
The following tropes are present in Halfway:
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The first "hub" area you get is a tiny maintenance room. It gets stormed as soon as you go to rest after picking up Sam.
- Bottomless Magazines: Averted. All weapons have limited clip sizes, and you can lose missions due to running out of ammo. Even ranged enemies will eventually have to stop and reload as well.
- Counter-Attack: Available if you end the turn with the "Retaliate" option, which is also available to your enemies. Unlike an overwatch in games like XCOM: Enemy Unknown however, it only activates in return to direct hits, so it's possible to bypass it by focusing on the nearby enemy that didn't opt for retaliating instead.
- Crate Expectations: Plenty of miscellaneous crates are strewn around the corridors.
- Energy Weapon: Once of the tougher cyborg types fires a laser beam from its chest.
- Healing Factor: Linda can heal herself every few turns.
- MegaCorp: The intro text states that "Super corporations have replaced governments on Earth and are driving the colonization of new worlds with ruthless vigour."
- Multiple Life Bars: First you have the blue body armour bar taking all the damage, and then it starts hitting the red health bar.
- Notice This: The interactable items flicker blue.
- Rare Candy: Health stimpacks will increase the maximum health amount. Other stimpacks will boost aiming or agility.
- RPG Elements: Characters and weapons can have their stats upgraded.
- Side Quest: Optional missions can be completed before you have started the next story mission.
- Take Cover!: Crouching behind crates or corners by the end of the turn is as important as ever.
- Was Once a Man: Practically all of the enemies.
- Weak Turret Gun: Averted. The turrets here are highly durable to compensate for their immobility.
- What Did You Expect When You Named It ____?: It's hard to believe no-one had second thoughts about going into cryosleep and entrusting their whole life to a massive vessel named Goliath.
