Video Game / RoboCop: Rogue City

To serve and protect.

RoboCop: Rogue City is a first-person shooter developed by Teyon (Terminator: Resistance) and published by Nacon, released on October 31, 2023 for those who bought the Alex Murphy edition and released for everyone else on November 2, 2023. Being an Interquel to the films, it takes place between Robocop 2 and Robocop 3, and features Peter Weller returning as the voice of the title character.

A new criminal mastermind has appeared in Old Detroit called "The New Guy". Throwing around massive amounts of money, he has attracted many new gangs as well as caused a skyrocketing death rate among police officers with twenty-three killed since his arrival. After a gang called the Torch Heads takes over a news station to try to draw his attention, Robocop is dispatched to deal with them and becomes involved in unraveling the conspiracy behind the city's newest player.

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Tropes found in RoboCop: Rogue City:

• 0% Approval Rating: It becomes abundantly clear that no one likes Max Becker, the bullish OCP executive who takes the reins of OCP in the final act. The rank-and-file DPD officers in particular quickly catch on that Becker is making their jobs more difficult. In the final Montage, his memorial service is only attended by a single person — an influencer who makes an in-universe Running Gag of attending such functions.
• 555: Some phone numbers found on posters start with 555.
• 6 Is 9: One of the citizens complains on how broken apartment number turned 9 into number 6.
• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene:
  • During the pursuit of the final Torch Heads holding members of the Media Break team hostage, Robo is impeded by an explosion that damages his memory circuits, causing him to hallucinate life with his wife and son, Jimmy, for the next few minutes.
  • During the Steel Mill quest, you can come across where Alex Murphy was murdered and there is still a tape outline of his body. This causes Robocop no end of stress and hallucinations.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Mayor Marvin Kuzak was shown to be an ineffectual inner city politician with little self control in Robocop 2 but ultimately was right about everything he accused OCP of doing. In Rogue City, he is a sleazy politician who wants Robocop's endorsement while not being willing to campaign for his personhood. He also diverts valuable police resources to look for his nieces' car during the terrorist hunt for Soot. Even if Robocop gets him elected, he'll immediately distance himself from Robocop and make it clear he has no intention of helping him obtain legal personhood, and his only plan to "save" the city is to sue OCP. Even some of his supporters note that the best thing that can be said about him is that he's not as bad as OCP.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: The Old Man in Robocop 1 and 2 is portrayed very much as a cutthroat corporate executive, though much more so in the second film compared to the first. He can be at best described as not as villainous as his underlings but that's mostly because he's in charge, doesn't need to compete with everyone else for his job, and can leave his underlings to do the more undesirable work. Here's he's portrayed as a figure with genuine love for his home city. Delta City isn't a mere attempt to give OCP a corporate kingdom but rather comes from a place of genuine love for his city (even if he's callous about the effect this has on Detroit's poor residents), and wanting to see it renewed. He's also far more empathetic with Robocop - having made the decision to send an (actually decent) psychiatrist to work with him, and shows genuine concern about Robocop's well being and advice. That said to a degree it is also downplayed. Part of his friendship with Robocop is entirely through wanting to study him and reassure himself he'll remain the man he is when he turns himself into a cyborg.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • For gameplay purposes, Robocop isn't as completely indestructible as he is in the films and on Normal difficulty can be brought down with several dozen pistol shots or a few dozen assault rifle shots. This can be mitigated with upgrades, with roughly double his starting durability when Armor and Vitality are fully upgraded with the former providing additional defensive skills and the latter providing additional health and health pack storage/improved auto-heal. Even without upgrades he's still roughly as durable as an old-school FPS hero like Doomguy or Gordon Freeman (which is quite tanky compared to modern FPS characters), there's abundant amount of repair kits in the field, and the terrible aim of most enemies does give the impression that you're withstanding much more gunfire than you actually are.
  • ED-209's Arm Cannons do about the same amount of damage as an assault rifle, whereas in the films they were 20mm autocannons (of the sort that's usually mounted on military vehicles) and could do more damage to Robocop's armor with a single burst than an entire warehouse full of thugs unloading onto him for several minutes.
• Affably Evil: The Old Man is still the head of OCP and thus responsible for all of their shenanigans but is genuinely friendly to Robocop as well as supportive of his campaign to be recognized as a living human being again.
• The Aggressive Drug Dealer: The Torch Heads get innocent children hooked on their product at arcades, just like propaganda of The '80s said they did.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • ED-209 malfunctions after being deployed by OCP to help in their fight against the Street Vultures. What is shocking is less that it does and more the surprise by everyone involved when it happens.
  • The 2nd ED-209 encountered during the Arms Expo doesn't seem to be aligned with the Expo attackers, at it will mow them down if Robocop doesn't do so first. It still indiscriminately attacks Robocop as well.
• A.K.A.-47: The vast majority of guns in the game are very obviously modelled after real-life firearms like the Desert Eagle, Steyr AUG, Barret M82 or HK G11, but were given generic names to keep things lawyer-friendly.
• All Bikers are Hells Angels: The Street Vultures are a gang with a great deal of similarity to the real-life outlaw biker gang, including many white supremacist tattoos as well as a love of motorcycles. They also include a lot of trained soldiers among them including snipers and grenadiers, implying some are veterans.
• All Crimes Are Equal: Played with. While as per the movie Robocop can slaughter his way pass drug dealers, gangers, and bikers, this is almost always after they opened fire first. The player is given a lot of leeway towards how Robocop handles other crimes, like vandalism, public drinking, etc... The game rewards Robocop for taking measured, considerate approaches (such as issuing warnings, and generally avoiding being harsh on Detroit's poorer citizens), by increasing the public's trust in him.
• All for Nothing:
  • The game shows that despite Robocop's efforts in destroying the Nuke cult in Robocop 2, Nuke remains on the streets in vast quantities with the Torch Heads simply taking over for the fallen forces of Cain.
  • Robocop's search for Briggs is something that takes multiple levels and a great deal of investigation, only to find his corpse in a fridge.
  • The mayoral election plotline ends this way, regardless of which candidate Robocop supports:
    • If Kuzakh wins, he goes back on his promise to grant Robocop legal personhood and his ultimate plan to fight OCP amounts to him ineffectually suing them.
    • If Mills wins, he shows his true colors as an OCP stooge and promptly resigns once its clear that OCP won't be building Delta City, leaving Detroit without a mayor at a very dire time.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Officer Chessman appears to have a one-sided crush on Lewis, much to the chagrin of his fellow officers.
• All Your Base Are Belong to Us:
  • The game's opening mission sees the Channel 9 building taken over by the Torch Heads, led by Soot, prompting an armed response from the DPD.
  • Later on, the Street Vultures take over the OCP Bank, prompting SWAT to storm the building in order to retake it.
  • And for the hat trick, the Old Man (in RoboCain's body) storms the OCP building.
• Anarchy Is Chaos: By Election Day, the removal of the police from the city as well as the UED droids meant to replace them being subverted and sent on a rampage means that criminals run rampant, killing and robbing at will.
• Artistic License – Engineering: From a construction engineering standpoint, just about everything about the Very Definitely Final Dungeon is complete bogus. No amount of fighting between two cyborgs wielding the weapons they're shown to have could compromise the foundation of a building as massive as the OCP HQ to the point that it collapses within minutes. Aside from that, the collapse itself is almost guaranteed to not happen the way it is depicted. Even after months of planning and precision calculations, the world's best demolition engineers would struggle to make several hundred meters of skyscraper implode this cleanly without at least parts of it toppling sideways - there's no way that random battle damage would do the trick.
• Artistic License – Pharmacology: Alex Murphy has the option of helping Pickles by taking away the money for his next Nuke fix in hopes of helping him get clean. This is actually a terrible idea in real life and would only work if Pickles had access to a clinic to help him through withdrawal if Nuke is anything like other highly addictive substances. Hopefully, Pickles does.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Robocop can give parking tickets as one of his functions.
• Ascended Extra: Mayor Kuzak was a minor character in Robocop 2, who mostly existed as a person for OCP to walk all over. In Rogue City, he is hostile to OCP and absolutely correct in all of his criticisms of New Detroit. You can determine if he's re-elected or not.
• Asshole Victim:
  • The New Guy murders Soot for the fact he brought so much heat down with his Channel 9 stunt.
  • Max Becker is murdered by the Old Man in Robocop 2's body near the end of the game. Needless to say, he had it coming.
• Attack Its Weak Point:
  • A Boom, Headshot! is an instant kill against any human. Gang members wearing steel helmets to protect from this can be shot in the groin for the same effect. Enemies wearing military body armor, which provides both head and groin protection, can still be shot in the limbs to bypass the armor.
  • The ED-209's speaker cover, which is noted in dialogue by Ulysses during the first battle against a malfunctioning unit. Specifically, this is the small panel in the robot's front, not (as you might expect) the large black cooling radiator which makes up most of its "head".
  • The Final Boss, Robocop2, is vulnerable in its front "nuclear symbol" panel and its rear brain access hatch. With an upgraded Auto-9 with full-auto, no recoil, and Bottomless Magazines upgrades, you can stunlock the boss for the entirety of its first phase just by shooting the nuclear symbol panel continuously. However, taking damage to the front panel no longer stunlocks him in the second phase, and in the final phase of the boss fight the panel breaks and no longer serves as a weak point.
• Attack Reflector: Maxing out the Armor skill makes Robo's body deflect incoming small arms fire in a semi-random direction, dealing full damage to whatever it hits. Given the amount of bullets thrown his way all the time, the probability of creeps getting killed by their own shots is surprisingly decent, and it just goes up the more enemies are nearby.
• Avenging the Villain: The "New Guy in Town" is revealed to be Wendell Antonowsky, brother of Emil Antonowsky (aka the Melting Man) from the first film. Except, toward the end of the game it's revealed that "Wendell Antonowsky" was an identity cooked up by OCP designed to throw Robocop off his game, and he was an OCP operative only pretending to be Emil's brother.
• Bad Boss:
  • The New Guy isn't terribly pleasant to his underlings by first killing Soot to punish him for his antics and later by refusing to pay the Street Vultures for their services. Robocop later can find emails confirming The Afterlife project employees hated his guts for being a terrible manager. This also bites him in the ass later when the head of the mercenary group he hires to kill Robocop find out he hasn't actually paid them. The mercenaries bounce on the spot with no hard feelings toward Robo.
  • OCP in general. Various announcements at the HQ show policies such as no sick leave if one is shot by a gun and not hospitalised, employees are expected to sleep at work (OCP brags they provide sleeping bags now) and other terrible policies towards their employees.
  • Weirdly enough, averted with The Old Man, at least outside of Max Becker, most of the OCP employees seem to genuinely love the man, and he's noted for sending personal congratulations letters for employees who have been with the company for decades (one such employee declares the letter his most prized possession and wants it framed). When he dies there's a large crowd of employees mourning him by his portrait.
• Bank Robbery: The Street Vultures mount an attack on OCP's Bank in the city of Detroit not long after Robocop drives them out of their headquarters at the old steel mill.
• Bash Brothers: During a later level, Robo and an ED-209 unit become this, storming an enemy stronghold side-by-side. The game even evokes a sense of competition by framing it as a "shooting contest" between both beings, with the game using a running tally to see who's killed more enemies.
• Battle in the Center of the Mind: As a result of suffering a major explosion that damages his system in the game's opening mission (and later, during the incursion into the abandoned mall to arrest Wendell), Murphy begins experiencing hallucinations and voices of his family/ criticizing him, culminating in a face-off against his human self.
• BFG: The Cobra Assault Cannon makes a comeback at the hands of the game's Elite Mooks and Murphy gets to play with them after taking them off the goons' cold dead fingers, with appropriately explosive results. It deals so much damage that it can knock off half of ED-209's health with one shot, and it's a One-Hit Kill against Robocop himself unless you upgrade his durability. Belt-fed machine guns as Removable Turret Gun placements and Grenade Launchers also make an appearance.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Mayoral candidate John Mills presents himself as affable and supportive with a deep respect for Robocop, even making granting Murphy legal personhood one of the key points of his campaign. This contrasts sharply with Mayor Kuzak, who's pretty open about being a sleazy political machine politician (largely due to lacking the competence to hide it). However, later in the game Mills shows his true colors, expressing his utter distain for the poor who he expects to be swept away to make way for Delta City. If he's elected Mayor, he'll pull a Screw This, I'm Outta Here, stating "I didn't sign up to run this dump", once it becomes clear Delta City will not be built and he's stuck as Mayor of Detroit. He's also a complete asshole during the election night riots and has nothing helpful to contribute, whereas if Kuzak gets re-elected during the riots he at least talks a good game about protecting the citizens of Detroit from the chaos (even if he knows it's Robocop who will be the one doing all the actual work).
• Bittersweet Ending: Although how much can vary depending on the player's choices. Despite becoming a cyborg, the Old Man dies as the original OCP building crumbles down on him after fighting Robocop, though the player can decide whether to kill him, leave him to his fate, or attempt to save him. Regardless, Robo is saddened at the loss of the one man in OCP who not only wanted to help Detroit, but also one of the few outside the police force that saw Murphy as both a human being and a friend. Depending on dialogue choices made by the player, Detroit might be left without a mayor, and the side characters introduced could go astray, and the public's opinions on Robocop himself could be altered. But, with the events of Robocop 3 a few months away, we know that while things will get worse, they will get better.
• Black Comedy:
  • This being a Robocop game (set in a Crapsack World version of Detroit), the ambient announcements play liberally into the satire seen in the original films. The various radio ads you hear deal with subjects such as a pharmaceutical company marketing "Snoozers", a sleeping drug for annoying kids (with one specifically chiding his father for trying to avoid a debt collector), a mother dissuading her daughter from "going to Heaven" by telling her that their ashes can be blasted into space, and Robo himself giving a much more sarcastic/flippant response to dire situations, if chosen by the player.
  • The death of the Old Man late in the game prompts this situation within OCP Headquarters. An automated message notes that employees can attend grief counseling (but that they won't be able to have it count towards their weekly hours), while an executive openly muses about whether his bonuses are still in play while attending a funeral for said character.
• Blatant Lies: The Afterlife project is a complete failure despite OCP sinking massive amounts of funding into it. The presentation of it uses a commercial actress to pretend to be someone back from the dead when Alex Murphy is the only semi-successful subject.
• Body Horror: Robocop, as always, is something that induces horror in people who see him with his mask off.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: The New Guy gets hit with this hard when he has Robocop dead to rights and hanging on a meathook after the attack at the weapons expo. He simply leaves, assuming Robocop will die soon, but not before monologuing to Robocop about the chip he put in him which has been causing his weakness. Detroit PD retrieves Robocop shortly after this, meaning not only did Robo not die, but he also knows how to thwart the one weakness holding him back. To be fair, this does fit with the 80's action movie throwback nature of the game.
• Boring, but Practical: The classic Auto-9 pistol can be relied upon as Robo's main firearm during the entirety of the game, and while it may not have the flashiness of some of the exotic weapons like grenade launchers or the various assault rifles, it can keep pace through circuit upgrades obtained throughout the game, which confer benefits to various aspects of the weapon.
• Bottomless Magazines: Robocop's Auto-9 doesn't have any limit to its ammunition. It can eventually be upgraded to have a truly bottomless magazine as well as turning it full-auto, effectively making it a handheld assault rifle.
• Break the Cutie: A milder extent than most instances of the trope, but Ulysses Washington starts as a bright, optimistic, and naïve young cop. He only becomes competent through seeing some harrowing action and getting shot in the arm, at which point he starts to realize what the job is about and behaving more professionally. He still has his vibrant optimistic personality by the end of the game but clearly matured by being in the heat of battle.
• The Bus Came Back: Almost every named cop from the first and second films appear here, despite many of them only appearing in one film each.
• Call-Back: The final boss confrontation is one large reference to Robocop 2, right down to a similar fight structure between the two units. The fight moves from the top of a building to ground-level in the exact same manner (Robocop 2 tackles Robo down a long shaft — an elevator in 2, the central core of the OCP Building here), one of his main attacks is to use a torch to burn a "scar" across Robo's helmet, and The Old Man roars in the same fashion as Cain if the "Kill" option is chosen.
• Call-Forward:
  • Taking place before Robocop 3, there are references to both the Kanemitsu Corporation and Bertha Washington (the head of the Resistance forces) late in the game.
  • The penultimate stage takes place in the still-under-construction OCP Tower in Delta City, which Robo has to fight his way to confront Wendell.
• Cassette Futurism: The computer systems are all old DOS green screen with phone booths as well as old cars. Internet and Wifi don't seem to exist and remote computer transmissions are done via satellite dish. They, however, have advanced machines like Robocop.
• Character Level: Murphy gains experience through solving investigations, completing mission objectives and scoring highly on his post-mission Evaluations — which translates to skill points that can be used to unlock new abilities or ways to interact with the world.
• Chekhov's Gun: The prized gold lighter Antonowsky carries — which (allegedly) has sentimental value to him, and is placed in a prison depository when he's arrested — is actually a transceiver that allows him to temporarily corrupt Robo's systems as a result of the tracking chip OCP placed in his head.
• Chekhov's Gunman:
  • Several of the minor criminals Robo arrests in the early missions of the game — including Maurice (the laundry-loving low-level dealer), the Arcade owner and Jerry Jenkins — appear as inmates stuck in the middle of the prison riot at the OCP Correctional Facility. Robo has to tell each of them to get to safety.
  • The residents you interacted with in the early visits to Old Detroit's downtown core become relevant during the riots towards the end of the game, when Robo must intervene to save several of them from a Hostage Situation or burning building.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The "Ricochet" combat skill allows Robo to bank bullet shots off metallic surfaces to drop enemies behind cover, the exact same way he did to kill the thug holding the baby hostage in the Nuke Lab in the first act of Robocop 2 (and more often in Robocop The Series).
  • During the OCP Bank mission, the ED-209's insufficient understanding of stairs once again comes into play, as one falls down and tips over at the very beginning of the SWAT assault into the main offices. The unit even "tests" its foot on the stairs, just like the ED-209 unit did in the original film while attempting to pursue Robo down the stairwell at OCP Headquarters.
  • When Wendell is arrested at the abandoned mall, Robo orders the other officers to take him in by saying, "He's a cop killer," the exact same way he asked Reed to process Clarence Boddicker after arresting him at the drug factory.
  • Each time Robocop leaves the DPD in his cruiser, he scrapes the bottom of the car when getting on the ramp, much like he does in the original movie.
  • The ED-209 being unreliable has become a Running Gag at DPD — none of the officers are surprised that one malfunctioned and gunned down an officer, while others snark later on that OCP made sure to give SWAT ED-209 units that wouldn't fall prey to malfunction so they could retake the bank.
  • The UEDs chassis are identical to that of the second failed prototype for Robocop 2. The "glitch" that can cause them to start shooting their allies is also likely a reference to the first failed prototype who shoots the scientists and then itself.
  • Max Becker celebrates becoming the acting CEO of OCP by summoning some prostitutes with "Bitches, come," the same way Clarence Boddicker told the prostitutes to leave Morton's house in the original film.
  • Robocop's final confrontation with the New Guy takes place at the site of the Delta City construction project, where he finds a trailer city of drugs and prostitution being ruled over by the New Guy. This harkens back to a scene in the original Robocop where Dick Jones mentions that the Delta City construction would involve 2 million workers living in trailers and that a criminal kingpin like Clarence Boddicker could make a lot of money running drugs and prostitution in such an environment.
  • When Pickles explains the story behind his name of how he picked up a barrel of pickles that fell off a truck and sold them for decent money, he finishes with "Good business is where you find it." Dick Jones used the exact same phrase in his speech to the OCP board in the first movie.
• Cop Killer: Neither the New Guy, Torch Heads, or Street Vultures, hesitate to kill cops.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: As is par for the franchise, OCP is full of corrupt individuals who are generally only in it for themselves.
  • Max Becker is a senior OCP executive who is later revealed to be in charge of the UED forces who are trying to control the city for their own benefit.
  • "Wendell Antonowsky" is an alias for an OCP manager who runs the "Afterlife" Program, and who takes control of Becker's UED forces during the last act of the game. The events of the entire plot, including the prevalence of various gang members and Officer Briggs being killed, are tied to his machinations.
  • The Old Man may be Affably Evil but he's still financing the incredibly destructive Delta City project, hiding all of the financial difficulties of OCP, and also Wendell's shady immortality project.
• Cranial Processing Unit: UEDs who get decapitated will begin firing at their allies. However this leaves them with very little health, and destroying their head will often straight out kill them if you also shot their body a few times too.
• Crapsack World: The Detroit of the Robocop universe continues to slide slowly downwards. The situation on the street is markedly worse than before — residents are disillusioned by the current state of affairs, the police are getting burned out after being pushed around by OCP and its representatives, and the downtown core looks to be falling into serious disrepair. And that's before one gets into OCP's corrupt activities behind the scenes, the police force striking late in the game, or the fact that a city-wide riot breaks out late in the game due to Wendell's machinations.
• Cutscene Boss: The final confrontation with Wendell is completely out of the player's control.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: As per usual for this franchise:
  • Robocop has issues reconciling the nature of his existence. His conversations with Dr. Blanche can have him broach this topic.
  • Played tragically straight with the game's final boss, the Old Man. He talks to Robocop a few times, about growing up in Old Detroit and Robocop what his conversion was like, voicing a genuine desire to make life better for the people. He ultimately becomes a cyborg using the Robocop 2 body to stave off death and finish Delta City, only to become a violent monster. In the end, the player can choose whether Robocop tries to save him, only to be saved in return, kills him, or leaves him to die.
• Darkest Hour: The penultimate mission has Detroit's police force left at a loss as the city spirals into a state of chaos, caused by Wendell giving a broadcast where he tells the populace (mainly the surviving gang elements) to burn down the city because the police are on strike and both Mayoral candidates won't change anything in the long run. It's left to a skeleton crew, including Murphy, Lewis and Ulysses, to try to bring the city back from the brink and stop Wendell at the same time.
• Dash Attack: Dashing can knock enemies off balance.
• Death by Irony: In the ending, the Old Man puts his brain in a Robocop 2 chassis, so he can continue to run the company...except that he's been reduced to nothing but feral snarls and brute force. For bonus points, his attempt to reach immortality (and other things) financially crippled OCP, and the fight with Murphy literally brings the whole building down, along with the actual company. For bonus bonus points, the endings have Murphy (who he created and liked) killing TOM, leaving TOM for dead in the collapsing building, or trying to save TOM...who pushes Murphy out of the way of falling debris, at the cost of his own life.
• Developer's Foresight: If you have skill points to spend, the number appears in the top right corner of Robo's HUD and stays there until you spend them, which isn't normally a problem because there aren't enough skill points available to max out everything. However, if you do turn yourself into a Master of All through cheating, the game quietly removes any surplus points and stops adding more, keeping your HUD clean.
• Disposable Sex Worker: Casey Carmel is found murdered in an alleyway and is a part-time prostitute. She was murdered by a television star filming a commercial after she tried to blackmail him with a sex tape she made of him in a skeevy garage.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In response to realizing that Dr. Blanche kept most of her evaluation notes on Murphy on paper copy only (after stealing her computer to get the files), Wendell not only sends an entire squad of mercenaries to the apartment complex she was hiding in, but attempts to burn down the building (with at least one supervisor, and possibly several tenants, to boot), in an attempt to cover their tracks. Only Murphy's intervention keeps her from being killed outright.
• Door to Before: Several indoor locations (and, on occasion, outdoor locales like the Steel Mill) will offer shortcuts back to the beginning of the area once a major objective is completed (or, in the case of the Steel Mill, if you opt to ram the train through a pair of large doors in order to create a shortcut).
• Dragon with an Agenda: The New Guy/Wendell Antonowsky works for OCP as the manager of their "Afterlife" project, which is attempting to replicate Robocop's cybernetic resurrection in a manner that's safe and consistent as a means of cheating death. However, Wendell chaffs at OCP's control over him, cuts corners in hiring and management of the project, and seems to be antagonizing Robocop far beyond what he was ordered to do (given his actions and those of the Old Man seem in direct contradiction at times). Ultimately, once the Old Man dies, he takes control of Max Becker's UED army and attempts to take over the city himself. The Old Man also gets screwed by Wendell's poor management of Afterlife, as he Came Back Wrong in the body of Robocop 2.
• Drugs Are Bad: Nuke is depicted as something that turns its users into psychopathic criminals immune to pain or self-preservation. This is demonstrated early on, when physical (melee) attacks won't hurt Soot, who is so hopped up on the drug that he can't feel pain.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: While Alex is already well-respected within the Detroit Police Department by the time the game takes place, with many cops even referring to him by his human name rather than just Robocop, his public reputation is still rocky at best. Depending on your actions, however, this can change for better or worse.
• Dump Stat:
  • There's very little point in upgrading Psychology, as all it does is occasionally give you unique optional dialogue, which mostly only lets you advance quests without needing to find the correct clue (which is quite easy anyway). The level 6 skill just tells you which dialogue options will increase your Appreciation value with key characters, most of which are fairly obvious anyway, and the level 10 skill just lowers the threshold for getting the best ending for each character, which is completely unnecessary as long as you do all their related side-quests. About the only use for it is putting 2 points into it for the level 2 skill, which doubles your Public Trust and more or less ensures you get the Public Trust ending while still giving you some leeway to be a petty dick to lawbreaking citizens that annoy you or who show zero remorse for their misdemeanor actions.
  • Somewhat hilariously, the Combat stat is very unnecessary: with proper PCB upgrades to the Auto-9, and bringing along secondary weapons when needed, the bonus to damage provided by Combat is a nice bonus, but never required. Even the final boss of the game will be torn apart by a properly upgraded Auto-9 and zero points in Combat.
  • Magazine size and reload speed become this if you equip the Auto-9 with a PCB that enables the Ammo Feeder perk, with performance unaffected no matter their percentage. The only reason you'd need to use chips for them is to connect to nodes for the remaining stats.
• Escort Mission:
  • At the beginning of the final act, Robo must escort Dr. Blanche (and the superintendent of the hotel she stays in, and possibly a cat, if you rescued it from a burning room) past an attack squad of mercenaries sent by Wendell.
  • Later on, the player must escort Max Becker through the Detroit Arms EXPO after the UED units he was attempting to showcase are co-opted by Wendell and used to murderous effect.
• Establishing Character Moment: Soot steals the place of Channel 9's anchor man and then executes a cop on live TV via drug overdose.
• Elite Mooks:
  • Some Torch Heads have trenchcoats, double health, and armored helmets which protect them from headshots. They're typically armed with heavier weaponry such as assault rifles or manning mounted turrets. They're still vulnerable to crotch shots, though.
  • The Street Vultures make use of an assortment of special units, including motorcycle-riding Fast Movers, grenade launcher-wielding Grenadiers, Broadcasters who summon reinforcements, Snipers, and Smash Mook types wearing heavy body armor and wielding sledgehammers.
  • Later in the game you'll fight the New Guy's mercenaries (who have uniforms similar to the Rehab mercs in Robocop 3); they have body armor and military weaponry and are noticeably tougher and more durable than the gang members you've been fighting, with even the basic mercs capable of withstanding at least half a mag of standard assault rifle fire if you don't hit their exposed limbs. Towards the end several of them are carrying Cobra Assault Cannons.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Once he's rescued from the Torch Heads, Spike tells Robo that the thought of harvesting brains from corpses (at Wendell's request) was too much, even for the Street Vultures.
• The Evils of Free Will: Max Becker believes the primary weakness of Robocop is his human half and that he can resist orders. It's why he attempts to destroy him.
• Exploding Barrels: There are red barrels that explode when shot or thrown.
• Expy: The New Guy is clearly based on Hans Gruber, not only having a very similar appearance but also in his role as a Diabolical Mastermind.
• Fantastic Drug: Nuke remains an incredibly addictive designer drug that seems to transform its long-term users into psychopaths.
• Foregone Conclusion: All of Alex Murphy's efforts in Rogue City will lead to the events of Robocop 3. OCP will be rendered bankrupt by the Afterlife project, UED failure, and the destruction of their headquarters. This results in them being bought by the Kanemitsu Corporation. The Old Man will die, being replaced with the CEO. Delta City will also be delayed in its construction with mercenaries needing to be brought in to replace the cops that are utterly disillusioned with the company. Whether re-elected or not, Mayor Kuzac can't stop any of it. All Alex can really do is to do what he does best, and determine whether individuals live or die until then.
• Foreshadowing: A lot of the game is designed around building up to some of the more inexplicable changes of Robocop 3.
  • OCP is in a bad financial state due to the delays of constructing Delta City. They have begun engaging in duplicitous financial behavior to acquire the real estate at a cheaper price from the citizens or even threatening to force them out directly. All the while running out of funds to sustain its myriad operations. This will lead up to the hiring of the Rehabs.
  • The Delta City project is being opposed by Mayor Kuzak but he is being challenged by an OCP Puppet King, Mills. Either way, Kuzak's efforts will fail but he points out numerous questions about what OCP intends to do with the citizen's poor that cannot afford to move.
  • The Old Man is suffering health problems, including a heart attack, that will take him off the board.
  • By the late game, the Kanemitsu Corporation is mentioned as making inroads at OCP's expense and eventually buys out OCP, assuming control over developing Delta City.
  • There's a mid-game side quest about how some calls to the police are being diverted by OCP equipment, so the cops never get a call from a specific part of Detroit, Later, it turns out this is where the Afterlife labs are.
  • The final boss being A Robocop 2 containing the Old Man is foreshadowed a few times. The Project Afterlife Labs are built under the apartment where he grew up and where he first meets Murphy. In the back of said lab, there's destruction and a giant gaping hole, like something huge escaped. That thing is never seen as Wendell is pursued. Project Afterlife is revealed to be designed to put dead people into a cybernetic body, something OCP's boss would clearly avail himself to if he had no choice.
• Functional Addict: Compared to almost all other Nuke addicts we see, Pickles is fairly chill and lacking in psychopathic tendencies.
• Game Over: Instead of the standard "Game Over" or "You Died" message, if you run out of health it will display "System Failure".
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • The tracking chip used to assess Robocop's performance at the end of each main mission is also the reason why the New Guy is able to cripple him, using a gold lighter as a transceiver.
  • The PCB circuit board minigame involves finding chips scattered throughout the game, such as in OCP Chests. Its introduction also has an engineer quipping about how valuable old OCP merchandise and appliances are for scrounging up said chips which is a subtle hint at how OCP's in such dire straits that it can't really afford to manufacture new ones.
• The Ghost: Being long dead, Clarence Boddicker and his gang don't show up in the game and are never directly mentioned by name - even Emil, whom the New Guy pretends to be related to under the alias of "Wendell Antonowsky". But with the subject of Murphy's identity being a key part of the story, the events that led to Alex Murphy's death at their hands, which directly led to him being brought back as Robocop, are referred to repeatedly. Boddicker himself does show up for a split second as a hallucination during one of Robocop's glitches in the steel mill when Murphy walks past the location of his death and recalls being shot by him. Though the rest of them don't appear, the rest of Boddicker's gang can be heard audibly laughing in the background during the hallucination, Joe P. Cox's trademark high-pitched laughter the loudest of them.
• Glass Cannon: Spike, the Street Vulture leader, is confronted during the election night riots near the end of the game while trying to blow up the Ambassador Bridge to Canada. He's no tougher than any other human enemy but is equipped with a rocket launcher... more importantly, you fight him and his goons in a room full of explosive barrels, so if he gets a shot off you all die.
• Gratuitous Latin: The courthouse interior sports what would normally be a Pretentious Latin Motto above the main courtroom door, except that (assuming it hasn't been shot to pieces) it reads: "quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur" - literally, "whatever is said in Latin sounds profound".
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Robocop can grab enemies that are within range and toss them at other goons.
• Groin Attack:
  • Shooting enemies in the groin is about the same as a headshot and occasionally causes them to crumple forward holding their now-obliterated nether regions in pain.
  • Against more heavily armored mercenaries later in the game, it's actually more advisable to shot them here, as their armor is not as heavy in the leg/groin area.
• Guide Dang It!: The entire Auto-9 upgrade system is poorly explained. Aside from how easy it is to miss many of the PCBs in the levels, especially the final 6.0 version, it never mentions that you can put any chip in any socket regardless of whether or not the connectors match up. That last part is crucial for avoiding the stat-reducing red nodes, so this would've been nice to let new players know. The system's second part, chip merging, gets no tutorial whatsoever despite being a massive trap due to its almost completely randomized outcomes and the limited amount of chips one can find in the game.
• Guns Do Not Work That Way: The SMG Tek (a weapon based on the Tek-9) expels its casings with the casings facing backwards.
• Hand Cannon:
  • Robocop's Auto-9 is already one of these, and with the right PCB boards it can be further upgraded to have no recoil, full auto fire, and Bottomless Magazines.
  • The Desert Eagle .50 AE, used by Street Vultures, kills unarmored enemies in a single shot (and takes out even armored enemies in just a few shots) and when used against you does more than twice as much damage as an assault rifle bullet.
• Harder Than Hard: "There Will Be Trouble" difficulty has enemies capable of taking out lots of health with a single barrage, even with maxed out heath and armor.
• Hate Sink: Max Becker just spends every second on the screen insulting Robocop, demanding the police cut costs by saving less people, and threatening the people around him. Later, he attempts to destroy Robocop just for being too human.
• Heavily Armored Mook:
  • A number of Street Vultures are equipped with heavy body armor and helmets, allowing them to act as Smash Mook types who charge Robocop with sledgehammers. They can soak up to a few dozen assault rifle shots or several dozen pistol shots but can still be grabbed and thrown or shot in their limbs.
  • All Mercs wear body armor, but the Merc shotgunners are particularly tanky, having about twice the durability of the regular ones. Unlike the Street Vultures' armored goons, they can't be grabbed and thrown, but can still be taken out quicker by targeting their limbs (though their high health means it still takes quite a few shots).
  • The Merc leaders wear extremely heavy armor and can soak several dozen assault rifle shots, as well as being immune to being grabbed and thrown. They're only armed with 9mm pistols, but always have a couple squads of Mercs alongside them.
• History Repeats: The DPD decides the abuses of OCP, which are inhuman and abusive, merit striking despite being a public agency. Max Becker responds by firing the police department.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: The Afterlife project is something the Old Man bets everything on despite the fact that it doesn't work. It results in the death of Max Becker, the Old Man, the destruction of the old OCP building, as well as a loss of massive resources.
• Hostage Situation: Seen multiple times throughout the game, as various civilians are held hostage by gang members. Various evaluation bonuses are only granted if the player is quick enough to gun down the assailants before they start shooting the hostages.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: OCP is revealed to be having a downfall-in-progress over the course of the story, with dwindling finances and increasingly desperate measures to keep itself afloat. Not to mention the Old Man roboticizing himself for a chance at prolonging his life. At the end of the game, OCP's HQ is completely destroyed in the final battle, taking down Old Man along with it.
• Hot Scoop: Samantha Ortiz is an attractive dark haired Hispanic woman as well as a reporter for Channel 9.
• Idiosyncratic Difficulty Levels: The Harder Than Hard difficulty added in the January 2024 patch is named "There Will Be Trouble".
• Immune to Bullets: Getting the maximum Armor skill upgrade allows small-caliber bullets to "reflect" off Murphy, causing damage to enemies in the nearby vicinity.
• Incompetence, Inc.: OCP for all of its seeming invincibility is actually something of a Paper Tiger. It's running out of cash to the point that it can't finance its big supervillain plots. Afterlife is running out of budget to handle the plan to make the Old Man immortal, Delta City is requiring large amounts of cost cutting as well as outright fraud, and it's products are as semi-functional as ever. Indeed, at the end, their mercs just abandon them because they aren't being paid.
• Infinity +1 Sword:
  • If you complete the "Who Killed Simon Page?" sidequest during the final (normal, non-riot) visit to Old Detroit, a mission which is purely investigative in nature, you'll acquire one of the game's strongest PCB circuit boards for the Auto-9, the Omni Tier 5.3. Once upgraded fully, it gives Robo access to a Full-Auto, Bottomless Magazines, no-recoil handgun that's good enough to see you through the rest of the game.
  • You can also locate the strongest circuit board, Omni Tier 6.0, during the Detroit Arms Expo mission in a drawer. That said, you can't make use of all of its special abilities (namely the pseudo-shotgun and single-shot upgrades) without severely gimping the Auto-9's overall stats in the process, but if you just want to max out your full-auto Bottomless Magazines goodness with a side order of armor-piercing rounds, accept no substitutes.
  • The classic Cobra Assault Cannon, functionally the most powerful Heavy Weapon in the game, starts getting dropped in the last couple of levels, with a free one on top of a building right near the "ED-209 Strikes Back!" mission area. The game even encourages the player to pick it up when, during the chase after Wendell through the still-unfinished OCP Tower, you'll reach a sniper nest with a free Cobra, incentivizing its usage (as well as the Robocop Theme kicking in).
• The Informant: Pickles is a Nuke junkie that serves as an informant for Officer Briggs. He's treated as a lot more sympathetic than most examples in that he genuinely wants to do some good for others, which can be encouraged by Robocop.
• Interrogation by Vandalism: Once he corners Soot in his private concert, Robo would then have to throw around the punk's collection of guitars and do other damage to his room in order to force him to talk.
• Interquel: The game is set between Robocop 2 and Robocop 3, and seeks to explain how the Detroit of 2 spiraled into the situation seen in 3. Becker's UED forces are a precursor to the Rehabs from 3, while the absence of the Old Man is explained as him trying (and failing) to be made into Robocop 2, functionally destroying the old OCP building in the process. The ending sets up the Kanemitsu Corporation coming in as part of development of Delta City.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: During the penultimate mission the mercenaries talk about how Robocop seems to be anticipating their moves, and one of them asks if their radio communications are compromised. Another reassures that no, it is perfectly secure. While Robocop is hearing this all through listening in on their radio communications.
• Interface Spoiler: A minor example occurs during the visit to the OCP Correctional Facility to meet with the incarcerated Wendell Antonowsky — the map shows that much of the facility can be traversed, which (in addition to having the mission objectives note that a large amount of stolen items need to be recovered) should tip the player off that the area has much more relevance than it initially seems. Cue the prison riot, forcing Robo to intervene.
• Inventory Management Puzzle: In a manner similar to that of Terminator: Resistance, the PCB circuit board minigame is this — the player must align various computer chips on the circuit board to achieve the best outcomes. There are a finite amount of them, and aligning the chips in the wrong way can cause significant drawbacks (or major benefits).
• Jerkass Has a Point: Becker is an absolute slimeball who talks down to everyone, and considers in scrapping Robocop. But he is right in that OCP is wasting money on its many projects like Delta City.
• Just One Man: Wendell is aghast as Murphy tears his way through an entire army of elite mercenaries. The mercenaries themselves are initially highly confident about their chances against Robocop, only to twist Wendell's arm into sending the UEDs in the field to support their forces when Murphy breaks through their lines, as the aren't getting paid to get slaughtered.
  Wendell: This is unreal! He's like the little engine that could!
• Karma Houdini: The leader of Wendell's mercenaries basically just leaves when Wendell fails to pay him, despite the death and devastation he had his men do across Detroit, including but not limited to wholesale slaughter of people in a prison and in a hospital (staff and patients in the later case). The only reason Robocop lets him walk at that point is because he's preoccupied with Wendell.
• Kryptonite Factor: The New Guy's golden lighter causes Robocop to shut down on sight, which is due to the chip that OCP installs in him at the beginning of the game. Wendell reveals that it was authorized by the Old Man himself as a last resort. Murphy eventually has it removed, thus removing this one weakness.
• Kung Fu-Proof Mook: UEDs, Merc shotgunners, and Merc leaders are all immune to being grabbed, which is otherwise a One-Hit Kill.
• Late to the Tragedy: The hospital where Anne is recuperating is besieged by Wendell's mercenaries late in the game, and she appears to be the Sole Survivor of the incident. Robo only arrives after the majority of the hospital staff and patients have been executed.
• Laughably Evil: Soot is insanely over-the-top, constantly cracking jokes, and an absolute monster.
• Mecha-Mooks: Max Becker's big project are the "Urban Enforcement Droids", mass produced robots based off of one of the early Robocop 2 prototypes (the skinny humanoid one), which he intends to use to replace Robocop and the Old Detroit police force. However, Wendell takes control of the UEDs and uses them to launch an uprising against the entire city. They can withstand a couple dozen assault rifle rounds or a few dozen pistol shots, making them just slightly less durable than you are without upgrades, and can also dual-wield submachine guns or wield heavy weapons such as .50 cal sniper rifles or .50 cal machine guns.
• Mêlée à Trois: The penultimate mission, the election night riots, features running battles through the streets of Downtown Detroit between the Torch Heads, Street Vultures, and the New Guy's forces, with civilians caught in the middle and Robocop fighting his way through the chaos.
• Mercy Invincibility: Robocop takes noticeably reduced damage when his health drops to critical levels.
• Mock Millionaire: OCP turns out to be bleeding money and close to bankruptcy due to the failures and delays in building Delta City. Their bank is almost completely empty of cash when Robocop breaks into it and they're slashing costs at every corner.
• Monumental Damage: As a result of the final boss battle between Robo and Robocop 2/The Old Man, the foundations of the OCP Building fail, leading the building to partially collapse as the fight concludes.
• Mook Debut Cutscene: New enemy types are introduced with a cutscene with a quick description of their tactics.
• Mook Horror Show: Most of the criminals, when they have time to react, panic at the idea of Robocop coming to kill them. It doesn't do them any good. Robocop also slaughters his way through literally hundreds of criminals throughout the game.
• More Dakka: The .3 line of Auto-9 PCBs, as well as the ultimate 6.0 board, have nodes that can be activated to turn the gun into a full-auto machine pistol. Higher PCB tiers add Bottomless Magazines to the party for even more dakka.
• Multiple Endings: Several variables exist that will change the ending, including how Robocop deals with the final boss, who was helped during the game, how much Public Trust you've earned, and which Mayoral candidate (Kuzak / Mills) was supported during the campaign.
• Mundane Utility: One of the powers that can be unlocked is a Dash, meant normally to stagger enemies. It also doubles handily as a dodge maneuver, allowing Robocop to get out of harm's way. It's particularly good at evading the aim of Cobra Assault Cannons or the final boss' charging attack. It's also a great way to supplement Robo's lumbering walking speed in areas that have him in combat mode.
• Mythology Gag:
  • The video rental store sidequest, "Be Kind, Rewind", is basically one long appreciation of Paul Verhoeven's filmography, with plenty of references to his work. When asked about a particular movie, Pickles elucidates that the movie almost never got made because the director read a few pages of the script and threw it out. Then the director's wife dug the script out of the trash and convinced him to take a second look because there were more layers there that he missed. Verhoeven originally threw out the script for RoboCop (1987) because he hated it after the first ten pages, but his wife who read it and convinced him to take the movie. Another video leads Pickles to reference how the director showed up in person to accept a "Worst Movie of the Year" award — a reference to Verhoeven turning up to the 1995 Razzie Awards in-person to accept an award for Showgirls.
  • The situation that motivates the penultimate mission — criminal elements causing riots in Detroit that the police are unable to respond to, forcing Robocop to handle it alone — takes a cue from Robocop Prime Directives, which had an And the Adventure Continues ending that suggested the same thing. The only difference is that the city isn't completely devoid of power, and his Prime Directives are still in full effect.
  • Robo confronting a number of OCP-operated droids (the UCP droids) in a warehouse, ostensibly as a "field test" for other members of the OCP brass, evokes Maddox's first field test with Robo in Robocop 2014.
  • The way Murphy solves crimes and sifts through leads also calls to mind how Robocop is shown to operate in the 2014 remake.
  • In the ending, the only attendee for Max Becker's funeral is an influencer resembling, or possibly is, Keva Rosenberg, a random unemployed man from one of the original movie's interview segments.
  • The turret terminals show files that have their "created" and "last modified" dates with years ranging between '87 and '93. The three Robocop movies came out between 1987 and 1993.
• New Game Plus: Added to the game in the Janruary 2024 patch. When starting a playthrough, the player needs to select their upgrades again^note Useful for those who'd want to change their original build, but the game provides new, stronger chips for your PCBs, and three new PCBs that can max out several stats each, with 6.2 providing the Ammo Feeder perk (invalidating any penalties to clip size and reload speed), an additional perk for single shot firing, and possibly maxing out the remaining three stats.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: There's a side quest in a video store which has a poster for a Tron-like movie starring Angelina Johansson as a character that looks like Lizzy Wizzy, who is voiced by Grimes.
• Oh, Crap!: During the final confrontation with Wendell, Robocop can tap into his mercenaries' radios. There you can hear Wendell, who taunts Robo over the PA system, acting like he's not at all concerned, panicking as Robocop shoots his way past each subsequent group of mercenaries, both of them growing more and more desperate as nothing they do seems to even slow down Murphy.
• Ominous Walk: Robocop has a heroic version as he moves very slowly throughout the game even if you can move him slightly faster to less a light jog and more, normal walking. The developers have even referred to the game as “the FPS that walks when others run”.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: Which stat it is shifts at the game progresses.
  • At the beginning of the game, Deduction is the best stat in the game. While it doesn't provide any combat bonuses, enemies at the beginning of the game won't be doing much damage and healing devices are plentiful. Conversely, upgrading Deduction grants a bonus to *all* experience earned, maxing out at a 50% bonus, and allows you to find hidden locations and safe codes.
  • By midgame, Armor and Vitality become much more important. Enemies start inflicting more damage and showing up in greater numbers, so the ability to withstand their onslaughts becomes critical. Particularly, maxed out Armor allows you to clear out a particularly busy room by standing still and letting the enemy bullets deflect and take them out.
  • In the endgame, Engineering becomes very useful for the bonuses to your PCB chips, allowing you to max out the capabilities of your Auto-9.
• Only Known By His Nickname: The Old Man is referred to as such (and as "the OCP CEO") in official news bulletins and documents.
• Poison and Cure Gambit: Becker mentions that in addition to the UEDs, he also had an EMP device built which could shut them down, which he was planning to sell to "the other side". He would then sell an upgrade to the UEDs which would make them immune to the EMP, and so on.
• Punch-Clock Villain: The mercenaries hired by the New Guy/Wendell Antonowsky are if nothing else, just professionals doing their job. They immediately stop fighting and just leave upon finding out that the OCP money transfer they're expecting isn't coming, even going so far as to tell Alex that it's Nothing Personal.
• Punched Across the Room: Robocop's punch is typically a One-Hit Kill that will send enemies flying across the room.
• Put on the Bus: Despite appearing in every film in the original trilogy, OCP executive Donald Johnson is never seen or referenced.
• The Quincy Punk: The Torch Heads have a punk aesthetic and are a bunch of psychopathic drug addicted monsters. They even listen to their leader, Soot's, incredibly bad punk music.
• Rare Candy: The "OCP Training Disk" items, which are usually found once per mission, confer an immediate skill point for Robo to upgrade his systems with (along with a generous number of XP towards the next skill point).
• Red Herring: When it becomes clear that the New Guy/Wendell Antonowsky is being funded by someone inside OCP, Max Becker is presented as the obvious suspect, and observant players may figure that the New Guy is collecting human brains to be used in Becker's Urban Enforcement Droid project. However, as it turns out, Becker has nothing to do with Antonowsky and his UEDs are entirely robotic. Turns out, Wendell's backer is the Old Man himself, who's funding research into replicating Robocop's cybernetic resurrection as a way to cheat death.
• Regenerating Health: A limited version of this appears — if Robo is below 20% of health, his meter will slow recharge back to 20%. Maxing out Vitality allows Robo to regenerate up to 75% health.
• Relationship Values: Several characters, namely Dr. Blanche, Ulysses, Pickles, and Samantha Ortiz, have "Appreciation" values that can influence what course of action they take in the game, and what ending they receive in the final Montage. The game also tracks your relationship with the Old Man, which determines whether or not you can attempt to save him after the Final Boss fight and allow him to go out on a Villain's Dying Grace Redemption Equals Death moment. Finally, the game notes which Mayoral candidate you support throughout the game, with your choices able to determine the winner of the election, provided your public trust is high enough for Detroit's citizens to put any stock in your recommendation.
• Right Hand Versus Left Hand: Ultimately, "Wendell Antonowsky" and Max Becker are both OCP executives working on high-end projects for the company that, knowingly or not, step on each other's toes (Afterlife for "Wendell" and the UEDs for Becker). "Wendell" proves himself to be Eviler than Thou when he hijacks Becker's UEDs for his own purposes to take over the city after the Old Man dies, but Becker's takeover of the company as acting CEO ends up leading to "Wendell's" downfall, as his entire budget to pay for his mercenary army came from the Afterlife project that Becker ordered shut down due to being too costly, leaving him at Murphy's mercy when the payment doesn't go through.
• Rotten Rock & Roll: Soot is the lead singer of a band and even has a song dedicated to doing Nuke. Robocop eventually apprehends him at one of his concerts.
• Saved by Canon:
  • At the end of the second mission, Lewis gets shot and severely injured courtesy of the New Guy, requiring her to go through surgery. After he escapes prison, he sends mercenaries after her while she's in the hospital to finish the job. Since this is an Interquel game, some of the tension is lessened by the fact that she will obviously survive up to the third film.
  • This also extends to Officers Reed, Donnelly and Jensen, who canonically survive through to the events of the third film. All three are kept away from the action in the finale — with Reed trying to manage calls from DPD Headquarters while Donnelly and Jensen are part of the mass firing OCP conducts just before the endgame.
• Scavenged Punk: Downplayed. On top of the weapons found throughout the various missions, Robocop is also encouraged to pilfer through OCP Crates and old equipment scattered about for chips with which to upgrade his PCB circuit board. It's also a hint that OCP's in such dire straits that it's easier to scavenge old gear than manufacture new ones.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • At the end of the game, Wendell's mercenaries immediately stop fighting and abandon him once his money transfer fails to go through (due to OCP no longer funding him). Their leader even remarks to Robocop that it was Nothing Personal before leaving.
  • If elected, Mills immediately resigns as he was supposed to be a puppet mayor for OCP, but with OCP collapsing and the city in chaos, he doesn't want the responsibility of running the place.
• Self-Made Man: Rogue City establishes that the Old Man is not just the chairman of OCP but also its founder, who grew up in a modest apartment in downtown Detroit. His desire to construct Delta City seems to be at least partially motivated by a promise he made a long time ago to his mother to turn Detroit into a shining city.
• Set a Mook to Kill a Mook:
  • Upgrading the Engineering skill enough allows Robo to hack enemy turrets (via his Dataspike) to set them loose on unsuspecting enemies. This can be used to great effect on both Wendell's mercenaries and the UED forces in the final missions.
  • If you find the appropriate clue beforehand, one early-game hostage situtation involving Torch Heads can be defused by telling the paranoid junkies that one of them is a traitor, which results in a brief altercation and both creeps shooting each other dead.
• Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: Despite being in OCP's payroll and having reasons to despise Robocop, at no point does Dr. Olivia Blanche reveal herself to be anything other than a caring therapist who's genuinely concerned with Murphy's well-being.
• Shows Damage: Invoked by a cosmetic skin found in a pre-order pack, which has Murphy sporting the battle damage he suffered from the finale of RoboCop (1987).
• Shout-Out:
  • One quest involves a paranoid vagrant wearing a distinct pair of sunglasses trying to convince Murphy that a nearby commercial shoot is run by aliens who are hiding subliminal messages in advertisements to get people to "obey". Sound familiar?
  • Ulysses Washington's civilian clothes are nearly identical to Axel Foley's outfit of varsity jacket and jeans. Fitting, as both are from Detroit.
• Side Quest: All of the mission areas are full of side content, up to and including "Serve and Protect", a series of random events during each visit to Old Detroit where the player can conduct menial police work (issuing tickets, solving minor disturbances) to get experience points.
• Skewed Priorities:
  • So many examples. Detroit's Mayor Pain interrupts Robo's attempt to fight serious crime to send him after his niece's stolen car instead. The OCP Bank's director worries about all the financial damage the three pounds of C4 explosive strapped to his chest might cause his employer if they were to detonate. OCP in general, and Becker in particular, prioritize money over anything else, no matter how stupid or morally reprehensible. And the list goes on.
  • From a different angle, you can overhear one civilian in the streets talking about how he heard a loud 'bang' sound while driving and thought his car had just blown a tire. Then he was relieved when he realized the car is fine and it was a gunshot he heard.
• Socketed Equipment: The various PCB circuit boards found throughout the game have to be upgraded with chips obtained from OCP Chests, and confer various gameplay bonuses.
• Starter Villain: Soot takes over the Channel 9 television station, has a big Establishing Character Moment, and then gets dealt with in a few levels.
• Straight Edge Evil: The leader of the Street Vultures, Spike, forbids any of his gang from consuming Nuke and destroys any he finds. It's probably why he attempts to lure Robocop into an ambush with a bunch of it to destroy.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • Robocop's animations are stilted and janky, along with the other robotic models. However this is obviously a Mythology Gag to the earlier film's stop motion and how Peter Weller moved in the suit.
  • Soot's bandmembers playing the drums and keyboard at first looks very poorly animated. Then it makes a lot more sense when you learn the song is on playback.
• Swiss-Army Gun: Although not a Lawgiver, engaging with the PCB upgrade system can change the functionality of Robo's Auto-9 substantially. What starts out as a burst-fire handgun can be turned into a sort-of shotgun, a traditional semiauto pistol with massive per-shot damage, a literal Hand Cannon firing explosive rounds, or a full-auto machine pistol, depending on the type of PCB you activate.
• Take a Third Option: In certain cases, finding clues or having a specific stat sufficiently upgraded can open up new dialog options that can solve problems in a more efficient way. One example is when confronting the arcade owner and his Torch Head goons, where Robocop can identify one of the goons as a mole from a rival gang, causing them to kill each other and the arcade owner to give up without a fight.
• Take Your Time: Despite the fact that Detroit is burning during a riot and numerous emergency calls are being piped through to Robo, the situation won't advance until the player arrives directly on scene, even when people are trapped in a burning building or the Street Vultures have wired up a bridge to blow.
• Theme Song Power Up: The Robocop theme plays in the background during specific sequences.
  • The beginning of the game where Robocop's gunning his way through the TV station lobby.
  • This occurs again in the penultimate mission, when Robocop is making his way through the New Guy's mercenaries and comes across the Cobra Assault Cannon along with a vantage point while a wave of goons are coming for him.
• Throw the Mook at Them: Enemies can be grabbed and thrown at other enemies, killing the thrown enemy and knocking over anybody who gets hit.
• To Be Lawful or Good: A literal game mechanic as Robocop's decisions are primarily whether to "Uphold the Law" or "Serve the Public Trust." In general, being lawful gives you points in the former while doing good gives you points in the latter.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Early on, one of the cases that Robocop can handle has a criminal who turns himself in so that he can collect his own bounty. The only thing he can get is a reduced sentence, which he accepts.
  • At the end of the Steel Mill mission, ED-209 malfunctions and threatens Robocop and a cop. The cop just stands there in front of ED-209 even when it becomes clear that it isn't listening to his commands and continues counting down until it opens fire. No points for guessing what happens next.
  • Soot taking over the TV station to shoot an advertisement to the New Guy paints a massive target on both of them for the cops (specifically Robocop), which leads to Wendell gunning him down for causing him trouble.
• Torture Always Works: Subverted. Soot can be beaten up all the live long day and won't say a word, but mess with his stuff and he'll eventually talk.
• Triumphant Reprise: After being last heard during the opening mission, the Robocop theme returns as Robocop shoots his way through Wendell's mercenaries and robots at the Delta City construction site. It returns again during the final boss fight.
• Underestimating Badassery: When Wendell's mercenaries arrive on the scene to rescue him during the prison riot, they disregard Robo's presence by commenting that he's not a threat. Towards the end of the game, however, they begin to grow increasingly panicked as he continues to plow through large groups of them.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • Robocop manages to kill about a hundred Torch Heads holding the news crews of Channel 9 hostage, but is filmed hesitating during a hostage situation (due to him hallucinating, but nobody present was aware of this), forcing Lewis to step in at the last second to save the hostage. So, of course, Channel 9 reports him as dangerously unstable. Becomes Deconstructed later as Samantha Oritz has nothing against Robocop personally but is trying to undermine OCP. She's also more grateful if he saves others.
  • Robo's only purpose at the Detroit Arms EXPO is to stand in place while Becker unveils the UED soldiers — and when they (predictably) go hostile and begin attacking, he orders Robo to protect him, yelling at him the whole time. He even makes it crystal-clear that his whole plan is to get Robo to escort him to an EMP that he will fire off, which will almost certainly fry Robo's mechanical components. When it becomes clear that Becker wasn't the main target of Wendell's attack, he sarcastically thanks Wendell for "choosing OCP" and runs off, without a word of thanks to Robo.
  • If Kuzak manages to get re-elected, which is only possible with Robocop's support, he'll immediately distance himself from Robocop once his public influence is no longer needed, and make it clear he has no intention of granting Murphy legal personhood.
• Unintentionally Notorious Crime: One of the side missions involves Robocop being ordered by Mayor Kuzak to look for his niece's car, a 6000 SUX, that has been stolen. Robocop's investigation reveals that the car was stolen by a member of a local chop shop who did it in desperation when he lost the SUX he was assigned to steal and knew what punishment awaited him for such a screw-up. He certainly did not expected to piss off the mayor and get his entire gang massacred by Robocop.
• The Un-Smile: Becker chides Murphy for not smiling at a press conference and Murphy gladly complies... Becker quickly decides Robo's usual neutral expression is preferable.
• Upgrade Artifact: The OCP upgrade boards the player finds throughout the game give access to specialized abilities for the Auto-9, up to and including the ability to make it have truly-unlimited ammo (never needs to be reloaded) or confers other boosts, like reduced bullet spread or increased gore effects. OCP training discs can also be found hidden throughout the levels which automatically grant you an additional skill point.
• Video Game Caring Potential:
  • The game has numerous moments where Robocop can appeal to the better nature of Detroit residents, in an attempt to set them straight or give them motivation to succeed.
  • Several sidequests have timed opportunities where Robo must save a cat in distress, either because it's trapped in a burning room or the owner has lost it. You don't get anything for it except some additional remarks (and an Achievement, in one case), but it feels good to do so.
  • This is also subverted in "First Field Training," a sidequest that is ostensibly about Robo giving field tips to Officer Washington as they search for and bring back a missing cat to an apartment tenant. They manage to do so... only after the situation spirals into a gang encounter that results in Washington nearly getting killed by a trio of junkies. At the conclusion of the mission, the tenant thanks you for rescuing the cat and comments on how it brings luck to her... while she's standing in the middle of an apartment with dead assailants around her.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: The source material is ultra-violent, so this is to be expected:
  • Having Robocop brutally beating down civilians is obviously a no-go due to his directives, but you can choose to prioritize the "Uphold the Law" part and be a petty dick to the poor residents of Detroit, giving them tickets for vandalism, public drinking, etc.
  • When it comes to the numerous shootouts, it's open season for how you can deal with your enemies. For instance, you can choose to grab the last survivor of a group and throw them to their certain death, like at an explosive object, even when they're helpless in your grasp.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: One of Robocop's directives is to protect the innocent. Unlike certain characters like Lewis, there's a few points where the game won't stop you from shooting a civilian, like during the shootout at Soot's concert. Cue immediate game over if they get shot.
• Video Game Dashing: Robocop unlocks the ability to dash, giving him more mobility and attack.
• Villain Decay: The first ED-209 you meet is a proper boss fight. It can be quite difficult as this early in the game the player has a few skills, and fewer secondary weapons. Focusing on Deduction or Psychology can make that fight very difficult. The 2nd and third ED-209 the player fights are fought with rocket launchers on the floor nearby. Each rocket takes about 1/4 of ED-209's health per hit, making the later two fights almost trivial.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Soot is set-up as the Big Bad of the game, storming and taking a television network (and the Media Break team) hostage in a high-rise building (though he flees the scene when he realizes Robo is about to storm the top floor). Come the second mission, he is unceremoniously shot dead by Wendell when Robo carts him out of the old slaughterhouse in an attempt to glean information from him.
• We Interrupt This Program:
  • The game begins with a live broadcast of Media Break interrupted by Soot and his Torch Heads breaking into the studio, taking everyone hostage (with Soot putting a gun to Casey Wong's face) and offering their services for hire to the New Guy.
  • At the end of the game, Wendell hacks the Election broadcast to deliver a message to plunge the city in anarchy.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The ending of the game has Casey Wong deliver a news report on the events of the game while covering the fates of Ulysses Washington, Samantha Ortiz, Olivia Blanche and Pickles.
• You Have Failed Me: The first thing we see the New Guy do is execute Soot for drawing attention to him with the Torch-Heads' takeover of the television studio in the prologue.
• Zeerust Canon: Robocop's vision of Old Detroit matches the future of the original movies with big computer monitors, cybernetics, and punk criminals.

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