Cyber Cyclops

It doesn't need depth perception to destroy you.

Shepard: The geth are perfect ambushers. They don't move, they don't sleep, they don't even breathe.
Ashley: Sir, they have flashlight heads!

— Mass Effect

It seems that if you want to give a (Killer) Robot, Cyborg, or Humongous Mecha a really sinister look, you have to build it with just one eye.

Similar to the Uncanny Valley, by deliberately giving androids a characteristic that is not human, you're making the audience realize how creepily in-human they actually are. For more standard robots or Humongous Mecha, a single eye denotes a sinister asymmetry not found anywhere in nature. It doesn't help these eyes are lidless and usually glow a relentless red, creating the illusion of a singular and evil focus. Can easily be justified by the inclusion of a rangefinder of some kind, removing the need for stereoscopic optics. After all, the stereoscopic bit is just one component of human depth perception.

Almost always a type of Glowing Mechanical Eyes. Contrast Faceless Eye. Frequently prone to Eye Lights Out. A Creepy Old-Fashioned Diving Suit might give this effect due to the window on its helmet. For the organic version, see Cyclops.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Doraemon: Nobita and the Steel Troops have the foot soldiers of the Mechatopian army having a single eye on their face. In the 2011 remake their eyes can shoot Eye Beams.
• Doraemon: Nobita's Secret Gadget Museum have a deactivated, one-eyed Killer Robot prototype kept in the titular museum's restricted area, which predictably activates and goes haywire at the end of the film to attack the heroes.
• The MS-06 Zaku II isn't the only example from Gundam, simply the best known. All the antagonistic factions in Universal Century and Cosmic Era use monoeyes (normally in the colour of red) for all their mobile suits; Zeon, the Titans, Axis Zeon, Neo Zeon, and ZAFT all use monoeyes almost exclusively.
  • And the only reason OZ's mobile suits don't count is that their eye sensor is so large, it takes up nearly the entire "face", and makes them The Blank.
    • The Maganac Corps' mobile suits also feature a monoeye camera.
  • Even the non-Super Prototype Federation suits from the UC Gundam series, specifically the GM and its derivatives also feature monoeye cameras. They're just less obvious since they don't glow and are hidden behind a visor. This is most clearly shown in the OVAs such as War in the Pocket, Stardust Memory and Unicorn.
    • The late UC era works, from Mobile Suit Gundam F91 onwards have most antagonist factions forgoing the monoeye design, partly as though to say "we're not like Zeon."
  • While the Space Revolutionary Army of Gundam X have the traditional mono-eyes, early United Nation Earth mobile suits have the more unusual triple-eyes.
  • In Gundam 00 the Human Reformation League mobile suit have the monoeye, the Flags and Enacts (and their predecessors) have one visible eye (if you look closely) above the reflective mask (with a scar like marking down the left side that lights up, for dramatic effect) that covers most of the robots face, and the alien-like GN-X series have four eyes.
  • The Death Army from Mobile Fighter G Gundam, with their unique mono-eyes that actually do look like a giant green eye. And Neo Japan's Busshi, which has a traditional-style monoeye.
  • Zeta Gundam is more egalitarian: both the AEUG and the Titans use mobile suits with monoeyes (Rick Dias for the AEUG, and the Zaku-based Hizacks for the Titans).
  • In Mobile Suit Gundam AGE, there is a Earth Federation mobile suit named Genoace, a mass-production unit with one big eye (similar to the OZ-MS from Wing) and the Genoace Custom, which has a smaller eye (actually a small visor, but it's still its eye). On the other hand there are the MS used by Vagan, which all possess a single strip-like sensor across their faceplate.
    • And now, with the mobile suits used by Zalam-Euba Alliance, the series has its own share of Zeon-looking mobile suits. And then there is mobile armor Sid.
  • The Graze-frame mobile suit in Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans has a spherical eye sensor with single camera hidden behind the visor similar to the Knightmare Frames. And then there is Graze Ein, which is Ein Dalton being a Cyber Cyclopes himself. Its successor, the Reginlaze, has three cameras on its eye sensor instead.
    • There is also the Rodi-frame mobile suit, which has trapezoidal monoeye.
• Generation 4 and 5 Knightmare Frames in Code Geass have a single large sensor, also known as a Factsphere, though they have a sort of "four-eyed" plate covering it. Played straight with the Black Knights' Gekka and Akatsuki series, and averted with any of the Ace Custom/Super Prototype suits (sans the Zangetsu, being a customized Akatsuki).
• The I- and M-versions of the Codarl from Full Metal Panic!. The prototype has three eyes; actually, the others kept them as well, they just remain unused. In a way, the mass-produced M9 fit this trope as well since it has a single, rotatable eye behind a green visor which is lowered when ECCS is engaged (the prototype has two eyes, as do every other mecha in the series).
• In GaoGaiGar, EI-14 has two eye-sockets, but only one eye that keeps changing place, thus making it qualify as a Cyber Cyclops. Then again, it is a Zaku...
• GunBuster, unlike most of the examples on here, is another instance of the protagonists using a one-eyed machine. GunBuster has even been referred to the god of all Zakus.
• Subverted in Macross, as the very first Valkyrie had a single eye (although it was blue, usually a "heroic" color). With the exception of the Sound Force mechs in Macross 7, all other Valkyries either go for the mono-eye, multiple distributed eyes (Michael's unit in Macross Frontier), or, most frequently, visors.
  • The Zentraedi mecha play this straight in the original Super Dimension Fortress Macross, since all of them have glowing red mono-eyes. That said, Zentraedi are as often allies as not in subsequent series.
  • And speaking of Robotech, The Inbit of Genesis Climber MOSPEADA have this as a dominating theme to all their mecha. It also just happens to be their weak point.
• Having been made by the same company as Mospeada, the Paranoid mecha in Gall Force bear a strong resemblance to he Invid, right down to the sensor eye.
• The series being based upon The Odyssey, Ulysses in Ulysses 31 had to fight a cyclops of course. A gigantic mechanical cyclops.
• In Mazinkaiser, when Baron Ashura captures Mazinger Z, he/she modifies it to his/her own tastes. One of the eyes, damaged in the fight, is left unrepaired, which is actually a hindrance as that cut the Kyoushouryuku Beam attack's power in half.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion has Unit 00. On a side note, unit 01 had two eyes, and 02 had four.
  • ...and the Mass Production Type EVA units have no apparent eyes.
  • 1+2+4=7, and seven eyes shows up a lot in the Book of Revelation (and under Lilith's mask). Thus, there weren't any more eyes to go around for the Mass Production Units.
    • My God...
  • We also have Jet Alone, who, much like Maximillian mentioned in The Black Hole (see Film section), appears to have a "furrowed" cyclopean eye, that doesn't even resemble an eye that well. Also, much like Maximillian, it resembles a very sinister grin.
• Drive Knight from One-Punch Man, a mysterious hero clad in black armor. He has a single shining red eye on his face. He is also hinted to be not so heroic. Various Organization robots and cyborgs (which are outright villainous) also have a single eye.

• The Phantoma's and Raptors in Zone of the Enders.
• In Cells at Work!, the Steroid (used to treat pollen allergy) is depicted as a Killer Robot with a red laser shooter as an eye.
• Briareos from Appleseed is a weird subversion; he certainly looks like a Cyber Cyclops, but that big eye in the center of his face is actually his central sensor, which is closer in function to a nose. He really has eight eyes distributed around his head (four around said sensor, two on the sides, and two on the tips of his antenna).

Asian Animation

• Happy Heroes: In Season 5 episode 22, when the Planet Gray virus activates within him, the construction worker, one of the normal two-eyed robot citizens, becomes a one-wheeled robot with a single, red-colored eye.
• Mechamato: The alien robot Ninjamera has one large eye on a cuboid head shaped like a video camera, which he uses to record others' embarassing moments and upload them on the internet, all the while trapping them in a back-and-forth Time Loop Trap.

Comic Books

• M-11, the Human Robot, from Marvel's Agents of Atlas. His monoeye primarily adds to his inscrutable nature.
• The Artisan Class droid in The Kill Lock, whose overall design, combining the monoeye with a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth and a spindly, sinister appearance, really helps sell his role as the Token Evil Teammate of the group.
• Crash of Killtopia is a non-villainous example, as he wants to be more than a mech.
• The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye actually provides a reason for why some robots have cycloptoid heads. It's a fantastical form of mutilation called Empurata, where their faces were removed and their hands chopped off, and they were left with just a singular optic and unwieldy claws. Because it was only supposed to happen to criminals, they were publicly humiliated and shamed for speaking against the corrupt government. With their ability to express themselves taken away, they were seen less as people and more as objects, made easier to ignore. Some examples are Autobot Whirl and Senator Shockwave.
• Subverted in X-Factor. In an alternate future, Cyclops has become a cyborg with several robotic limbs, but while he's still named "Cyclops", he also seems to have mastered his optic powers and no longer wears the distinctive one-eyed visor.

Films — Animation

• Baramanda's personal guards from Ark are hulking, robotic brutes towering over the main characters, whose sole facial feature is their red central eye. It's also their only weak spot, where shooting it directly will put them out of commission.
• The Fabrication Machine in 9 bears a striking similarity to HAL.
• Meet the Robinsons villain Doris is a cyber cyclopian bowler hat.
• The giant alien probe in Monsters vs. Aliens.
• WALL•E:
  • AUTO, the sinister auto-pilot, is a nod to HAL.
  • The "keyboard robot" from the scene where WALL•E and EVE are going into the elevator is a subversion, since it waves good-bye in a friendly manner as they are leaving, having learned the behavior from WALL•E's earlier greeting.

Films — Live-Action

• HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey couples a Creepy Monotone with multiple unblinking, cyclopean eyes positioned all over the Discovery spacecraft.
• Maximillian from Disney's The Black Hole. "Furrowed" brow added for increased Evil Value.
  • It's also easy to mistake as a grin, all the more disturbing when he's chopping people up.
• The City of Lost Children has a religious cult of blind men with one electronic eye who kidnaps kids.
• Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) fires his disintegration beam from a single ominous point under his opened visor. Probably the Trope Maker. In the remake, Gort has a single glowing red eye behind the visor — there's a good moment when one of the characters realises the eye is following him as he walks across the room.
• Cybernetic Grandma: The title character's head is a black sphere, the only features of which are a stylized eye and mouth.
• Godzilla vs. Gigan: Gigan is a giant space cyborg kaiju with only one eye...that can shoot a cluster of laser beams.
• The film adaptation of Lost in Space featured "The Robot" with a big red eye and was reprogrammed by Dr. Smith to kill the crew. After being rebuilt and reprogrammed with loyalty, his new shape has a bubble head much like the one in the TV show.
• GERTY from Moon. Monotone, HAL-like voice? Check. Single, camera-like eye in the middle of his control panel? Check. Subverted in that we don't know for the first half of the film if he's on the protagonist's side or not. It turns out he very much is.
• Pacific Rim: Crimson Typhoon and Horizon Brave are both mono-eyed robots.
• AMEE from Red Planet. Not a scary cyclops at all until the inevitable malfunction turns it decidedly unfriendly.
  • It's not just the malfunction, though. The malfunction only makes its self-defense the highest priority. So when the crew start to openly talk about removing its power source, AMEE perceives it as a threat to itself and switches to combat mode.
• In Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), the Giant Mecha that stomp through New York and the Squid Robots that search the Flying Legion airbase have only one eye. Other Killer Robots in the movie have two, though.
• Star Wars:
  • Non-sinister example: R2-D2 and most other astromech droids, such as BB-8.
  • However, there are many sinister robots with this feature in the same series. The IG series of assassin droids, for instance, along with the G0-T0 Infrastructure Planning Systems, and the IT-0 Interrogator droid.
    • The IG units actually have many eyes, though one large one is most noticeable as it tends to face front while the others stare off in all directions.
• Ravage has been designed with single eye in Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen. And he's a panther. A giant, one eyed panther. With guns. Made out of razors.
• Transformers: Dark of the Moon: Shockwave is a spot-on example with all tropes present and correct. He's a giant mecha, with a single glowing-red-eye-of-evil. What more could you ask for?
• The Whisperer in Darkness. The Mi-Go don't have eyes, just a head-like growth with tendrils, but wear helmets with a single ocular lens during the mid-air battle.

Literature

• Alan Alone: Downplayed with Dede; although he's featured in illustrations to have one eye which makes up most of his head, and Alan feared his robot buddy's destructive capabilities, Dede remains as friendly as ever.
• Cakes In Space has a non-villainous example of this trope in Pilbeam. He's a robot with a single eye, and is helping Astra to save the ship from an infestation of sentient cake monsters, veering off course, and looting Poglites.

Live-Action TV

• The Cylon Centurions from Battlestar Galactica. Notable in that their "eye" is a horizontal red LED light that swoops from side to side. Centurions and Raiders in the new series continue this. Humanoid Cylons aren't one-eyed, though their spines do light up during, err, more intimate moments. Though it's an internal lighting up only the audience can see, rather than one visible to their partners. Sam Anders's eye also glows red in response when a Raider identifies him as a humanoid Cylon.
  • Speaking of secret humanoid Cylons: Saul Tigh is technically a cyber cyclops after he loses an eye on New Caprica.
• Gig Fighters from Chou Sei Shin Gransazer.
• Doctor Who:
  • Daleks have a single eye-stalk protruding from their travel machines, which has changed colour over the years. The short-lived "New Paradigm" Daleks even had obvious pupils, as the production team wanted it to look like there were actual organic eyes at the end of the stalks.
    • Davros, creator of the Daleks, lost his eyes when his eyelids were melted shut by a nuclear explosion. As a result, he had a creepy blue artificial eye implanted in his forehead. This cyborg implant can apparently feel pain, and in one story could shoot bolts of electricity.
  • WOTAN in "The War Machines", named after a one-eyed god from Saxon mythology.
  • "Four to Doomsday": On Monarch's spaceships, the protagonists were sometimes followed by floating metal spheres with one eye (basically alien CCTV cameras).
  • "The Caves of Androzani": The villain has some non-humanoid (and non-speaking) androids he uses as muscle. They have smooth white (metal?) heads, featureless except for a sort of large slightly recessed circle in the middle of the "face", resembling a high-tech CCTV camera.
  • Lady Cassandra's little spider-like robots (in "The End of the World" and "New Earth") have one glowing eye.
• KITT in Knight Rider, another Glen Larson production, had a similar array of lights on the car's nose as a Shout-Out to his earlier series. Since this light array is KITT's scanner, it could be considered an eye of sorts.
• Another heroic example is Gypsy and Cambot of Mystery Science Theater 3000, though Cambot's eye is the camera. It's hard to tell, though, if Tom Servo counts as this as well.
• In Power Rangers Mystic Force/Mahou Sentai Magiranger - Oculous of the Ten Terrors/Cyclops of the Infershia Pantheon had a single red eye, but he was merely the most techno-based of the ten and not an actual robot.
  • Venjix in Power Rangers RPM is a more typical example, in what is almost certainly a deliberate homage to HAL - but only when he's in his massive computer cylinder form. His robotic bodies throughout the season all have two eyes.
• The Ultra Series have it's share of Mechanical Monster foes terrorizing the Ultras, some which inevitably fits in this design:
  • The iconic Ultraseven enemy, King Joe, has a single glowing visor on it's head which serves as a visual organ, giving off this vibe. Said visor can fire Eye Beams capable of sinking ships.
  • Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero brings back the iconic Ultraman foe, the one-eyed space monster Zetton, but because of Adaptation Species Change, this time Zetton is instead a robot created by the Baltanians, while retaining the original Zetton's cyclopean features, making it fall under this trope.
  • Ultraman Tiga has the monster, Ligatron, which used to be a spaceship called Jupiter 5 before being assimilated by cosmic energy and transforming into a rampaging monster - with the spaceship's cockpit as it's "eye".
  • Ultraman Gaia have more than one of these: Out of the trio of Nature Control Machines tasked with resetting earth, Tenkai and Shinryoku have their "eye" being their sole facial feature ^note  the exception is the beetle-like Enzan, who has two eyes . There's also the one-eyed Sigma-Zuigul, where it's eye contain a Tractor Beam capable of absorbing targets.
  • One of the strongest monster from Ultraman Neos is Zamu Revenger, a giant robot with a single green eye that can generate an energy barrier around itself. Goes without saying that the moment Neos got around Zamu Revenger's defenses the first thing he did is to smash it's eye, it's just too tempting as a target.
  • Hellzking from Ultraman Cosmos is a Transforming Mecha has a single yellow eye, which serves as a beacon when it's in ship form.
  • Ultraman Max has the second Basark, Satellite, being the cyclops, although it's debatable how much the "cyclops" part applies since it's head is shrunken all the way into it's chest area.
  • Ultraman Mebius has a Cyborg monster, the Flying Saucer beast Roberuga with a glowing V-shaped orange eye that's visible in both flying saucer and kaiju form. Said eye can fire energy blasts almost non-stop.
  • Vadoryudo from Ultraseven X, another alien weapon not unlike King Joe, and once again it comes with a single red eye as it's sole facial organ.
  • The later spinoff / sub-franchise, Ultraman Zero, has a Robot Me of Ultraman Zero called Darkclops, whose name is pretty much Exactly What It Says on the Tin - a dark robotic cyclops version of Zero.

Other

• The start-up image, advertising image, and "logo", for lack of a better term, of the Android smartphone operating system is a single red robotic eye that looks suspiciously like HAL's.

Pinball

• The attacking Humongous Mecha in the Pinstar conversion kit Gamatron has one of these.
• The main character in Data East's RoboCop, of course.

Tabletop Games

• BattleTech:
  • The Cyclops assault BattleMech has a head which is totally dominated by a red/black eye, which is where the cockpit is housed. In MechWarrior 4, the eye is the mounting point for a laser cannon, while the cockpit has been moved down into the torso.
  • The very first 'Mech, the Mackie, was originally designed with a large, squat head and a prominent round cockpit viewport made of one-way glass. The effect was said to be 'eerie' and prompted the use of normal windscreens in later models.
• Pathfinder: Numerian robots typically have a single glowing red or blue eye.

• Rocket Age: The dangerous kind of Ancient Martian robomen frequently have a single slit shaped eye, ala Battlestar Galactica (1978) or The Day The Earth Stood Still 1951.
• Sentinels of the Multiverse: Omnitron and his drones are strongly associated with a single glowing red eye. Even his heroic version from the future, Omnitron-X, has one.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • The T'au Empire's armor gives their soldiers this appearance (though they can have two such "eyes", stacked vertically.)
  • One of the Ork heads in the Nobz kit also has a bionik bonce with a single slit eye. And an exhaust that makes it look like the Ork is smoking with it.
  • Necron examples:
    • All Crypteks, and many of their Canoptek constructs, sport a single large eye at the centre of their robotic faces, giving these techno-sorcerers a distinctive and sinister appearance.
    • Deathmark snipers possess a single glowing eye that can track the hunter's mark that the sinister assassins place on their target through five dimensions, ensuring that their victim has nowhere to hide.
  • The drones that guard the Blackstone Fortress in Warhammer Quest: Blackstone Fortress have a single red eye in the center of their bodies, which is also one of their few weak spots.

Toys

• BIONICLE: Keetongu. Subverted in-story, where it's explained he has his real eyes hidden behind the visible one.
• Transformers:
  • This is Shockwave's defining feature in any Transformers property.
  • There's also Whirl, who (like Shockwave) got his inhuman appearance from being imported from an earlier toyline.
  • There actually quite a few of these in the movie toyline, for example, Dropkick. None of them are in the movie itself, but some of them show up in the tie-in video games and/or comics. Nearly all of the "extra" Decepticons or non-sentient drones have one eye for a face while the Autobots have regular humanoid faces and two eyes.
  • In addition to the more traditional cyclops-types, there are also some Transformers with a "visor" that goes across the face rather than separate eyes. While most come across closer to Cool Shades^note the various incarnations of Jazz in particular, there are some, such as Tarantulas, that can be seen as a downplayed version of this trope.

Video Games

• Advance Wars: Dual Strike has Jugger, a robotic officer for Black Hole. Although it's questionable whether he's actually a robot in the first place...
• Ascent Crash Landing: Bluu's Robot Buddy, Blip, has a single eye.
• Most robot-based enemies from Atomic Robo-Kid have a single red eye as their sole facial feature, including a giant sentient set of spinning blades with a single red eye in it's center that Robo-Kid must shoot at to avoid getting shredded. The titular character himself averts this by having two eyes and a robotic "nose", humanizing it in comparison to the mooks.
• Gizmo: The Player Character is a one-eyed robot.
• Half-Life 2: The white-armored Overwatch Elite have only a single, big red eye. This is probably done to suggest they are highly modified Elite Mooks with wires coming out of their eye sockets and connecting to a big camera. This is lampshaded in the parody webcomic Concerned with the Elite Mooks suffering from poor depth perception because they have only one eye.

• Hangzo have a one-eyed giant robot serving as it's first boss, though it's lower body is a Spider Tank on wheels.
• Mad Age And This Guy: One of the robot enemy-types you face in the game has a single eye, which is only visible when it's pursuing you.
• Marvel's Avengers: Adaptoid robots have a single eye-like light in the middle of their faces.
• Mega Man: Various enemies, including Big Eye, the various Joes, the Pantheons, Variants, Galleons, and Devils.
  • Mega Man 3: Proto Man has a single glowing eye behind his visor when he was sporting his Break Man disguise.
  • Mega Man Legends has the Reaverbots, each of which is one eyed in the first game. In the others some have more.

• Metal Gear series:
  • ''Metal Gear': Although Cyborg Ninja Gray Fox does have two eyeholes in his mask, the single glowing red sensor in the middle is far more conspicuous.
  • Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty: The unmanned mass production Metal Gear RAYs have monoeyes.
• Metroid Dread has E.M.M.I., whose head has a single red glowing eye. That can also be turned into a drill for an instant kill move if they incapacitate Samus.
• Nuclear Throne: Nearly every robot has this design, from the huge Spider Tanks to the small playable Robot character.
• The monster in SimCity 2000 is a large, flying mecha/UFO with four mechanical legs and a blinking red eyeball.
• Servos in The Sims 2 and some Plumbots (via Character Customization) in The Sims 3 are one-eyed, but they're only evil if you want them to be.
  • And why wouldn't you?
• The Aperture Science Sentry Turrets in Portal.
  • Not to mention, GLaDOS when you finally see her, plus her little robots that are attached each have one eye.
  • Really, all of Aperture Science's robots are one-eyed, such as Personality Constructs, Atlas and P-Body, and the Rocket Sentry.
• Terminator Rampage has a mono-eyed robot mook called the Meta-borg, with a slit containing a moving light as it's sole "eye". This particular enemy seems to be exclusive to the game and doesn't appear in any of the films.
• The Geth from the Mass Effect series have heads consisting essentially of one eye at the end of a thick tube. Certain spirits in Dragon Age II use a similar body shape.
  • Reaper Destroyers in Mass Effect 3 are also given one giant red eye to serve as a sort of (very intimidating) face. The fact that it also happens to be an eye-mounted-Wave-Motion Gun makes them even scarier.
• Mazin Saga: Mutant Fighter have a recurring one-eyed giant robot enemy, taller than your character, who attempts to rough you up via Arm Cannon.
• Many soldiers in Deus Ex wore glowing visors to obtain an air of Cyberpunk inhumanity, such as the NSF, MJXII, and commandos.
  • Also, the artificial intelligence Icarus uses a singular eye with metallic plating surrounding it as an avatar. Its successor Helios also has a prominent eye, but the rest of its "face" looks vaguely biological, almost like a cephalopod.
• The Avatar and Purifier in the Command & Conquer series are the epitome of this concept, although some could say they have in fact seven eyes, just the other six are in the chest, yet, they have a really dark badass look and just one glowing red eye in the head. There's also the Redeemer, which is significantly larger.
  • The Brotherhood of Nod also has Enlightened cyborg infantry, with a distinctive cross-shaped eye.
• The Scuzzer droids from Startopia each have a single red lens, in a fairly obvious homage to HAL.
• In Sword of the Stars, ships with the AI command section have a KITT-style eye in place of a bridge.
• Commander Keen 5 has robotic enemies that have a disc shaped body with a black bar on the equator. The bar has a cylon-style red dot that move around until it locates the player.
• Commando: Steel Disaster have a giant scorpion mecha in the desert stage whose sole facial feature is it's huge, glowing red eye. Incidentally that's also it's weak spot.
• Castle Crashers features one of these as a boss.
• The "Big Sister" of BioShock 2 certainly evokes this trope.◊
  • Also the "Rosie" style Big Daddies◊ from the first game.
• Enemy robots in the Descent series typically have either a single glowing red eye or a Cylon-style oscillating eye.
• BRAHMA Force: The Assault On Beltlogger 9 have it's titular mecha. Not visible during gameplay because of the First-Person POV, but cutscenes reveals the BRAHMA robots as having a sole green eye for it's face.
• Lots of Titans from the Titanfall games feature this design (or something similar). Ion from Titanfall 2 is able to fire a giant laser out of her singular eye as her core ability.
• The CY prototype from Ty the Tasmanian Tiger 2 has a monoeye that glows a reassuring yellow. Plus it looks like it's made of scrap and a strong wind could shatter it.
• BlazBlue's Robot Girl boss Nu-13 and Lambda-11 have two forms. An apparently human form with a fancy eyepatch, and her obviously mechanical battle form with a single visor eye.
• The Kirby series has a number of cyclopean enemies, the following of which are mechanical:
  • Heavy Mole from Kirby's Adventure is some kind of underground digging machine with a single half-closed eye. It also shoots missiles with a similar monoeye on the head.
  • HR-H from Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards is a strange lighthouse/crab robot that serves as the boss for Shiver Star.
  • Capsule J from Kirby Super Star is basically a mechanical Waddle Doo with a jetpack instead of Eye Beams. It was redesigned and renamed for the DS remake, though, and no longer looks like this.
  • Kirby & the Amazing Mirror has Metal Guardian, a floating orb with a single eye that shoots lasers.
  • Mecha Kracko from Kirby: Squeak Squad is a Robot Me version of Kracko, who also has a single eye.
  • The mini-boss Dubior EX from Kirby's Return to Dream Land has one eye, while regular Dubior has two.
  • Kirby: Planet Robobot has a greater number of these, due to the game's mechanization theme:
    • Dubior EX returns, now called Dubior 2.0.
    • Mecha Knight (Meta Knight undergone Unwilling Roboticization) has a single mechanical eye in the eye hole of his mask that can move left and right. It can fire Eye Beams.
    • Star Dream appears to be a large, angelic computer with one single orange-colored eye. Star Dream Soul OS has a blood-red colored eye instead.
• The Aeon Galactic Colossus of Supreme Commander is perhaps the perfect representation of this. Not only is it immense, but has a single eye, which also doubles for its Eye Beams projector.
• Krimzon Guard scuttler robots and the Uber-Bot 888, in the Jak and Daxter series.
• KAOS's third head in Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble!
• Ceres' dream self, Bismuth, in Obsidian, which resembles a rusted-down robot elf made of scrap metal that can teleport at will, and has a spotlight for a head.
• The Robo Knight boss in Wonder Boy III: Monster Lair has a Cylon-type mono-eye.
• One of the signature characteristics of the Neuropa faction in Metal Fatigue.
• In the Contra series, this is a common trait in robotic bosses. However it also features Browny and Brownie who are two heroic examples.
• Magnemite and Beldum from Pokémon.
• The robots in The Journeyman Project.
• In Alien Hominid, a one-eyed robot is the boss at the end of the first level. Near the end of the game that robot's now-disembodied eye comes back in a much larger body for a much tougher fight.
• In the Borderlands series, every robot has one eye—or at least is not stereoscopic. The only exceptions are the "geisha-bot" Sereena (who is never seen in person), Gortys from Tales from the Borderlands, and some "Torgue" bots that are obviously Hyperion loaders with human helmets stuck on top. Many of these robots are menaces, but some (such as the CL4P-TP units) are not, so the trope is zig-zagged.
• Most of the generic robot enemies (specifically, the Proto and Bugger lines) in Chrono Trigger apply.
• Justified in Team Fortress 2's Mann Vs Machine game mode. The Demoman robot has a single eye, but the actual Demoman has one eye as well, with his missing eye covered by an eyepatch.
• In Tales of Phantasia, one of the enemy types found in the city of Thor is a family of robots that possess a single eye and hover above the ground.
• The alien drones in Fallout 3: Mothership Zeta.
• Warframe Update 10.5 has General Sargas Ruk wearing a face mask with a single glowing "eye".
• The Gorgies and a few other robots in Vanquish.
• Marquis from Battleborn is a robot Battle Butler sniper with a single eye designed like a monocle.
• Some of the Cyber units in Empire Earth. Fittingly, the first combat cyber was called Cyclops.
• Fallout 4's Assaultrons are Fem Bot cyclopses with Wave-Motion Gun Eye Beams. Subverted, though, as the robot looks cyclopean, but their laser weapon's prominent emitter isn't what they use to see. The Assaultron's "eyes" are actually the two smaller black sensors directly above the emitter.
• Bucket from Evolve, as well as all the repair droids his body was based on.
• The Vex in Destiny come in many forms, but they all have a glowing red eye. This even includes the Cyclops, which is a type of turret instead of a real Vex unit.
• Sundered:
  • The Medusozoa enemies are large, jellyfish-like robots with a single large eye. By default this eye is blue, but it turns red as the Medusozoa locks onto its target and prepares to fire its Wave-Motion Gun.
  • Panzers resemble Big Daddies with jetpacks, and their helmets, while having a few different designs, always sport a single “eye”.
• Bastion in Overwatch has a single slit-shaped eye, except in its Woodbot and Antique skins where it has two smaller but equally rectangular Glowing Mechanical Eyes. The other glowing blue components on its chest and shoulder armour may also be eyes, since they follow the colour of its main eye when it changes.
  • The majority of the Null Sector NPC enemies are Nulltroopers and Eradicators, who also have slit-shaped eyes, with a handful of Bastion units. They also have Slicers, with two eyes arranged vertically, OR-14s, which have four eyes apiece, and Detonators, which have no distinguishable eyes.
• Many of the Mechanical Lifeforms in Horizon Zero Dawn have this type of design.
• The Killing Machines and their variants in the Dragon Quest series have wildly different designs that set them apart from one another, but their single, HAL-like eye is their defining trait. They're also one of the few generic enemies that can attack twice per round, and starting in Dragon Quest VIII they can shoot lasers from their eye.
• V1, the protagonist of ULTRAKILL, and its rival V2 sport this aesthetic.

Web Comics

• Roofus the Robot and W2-9000 from The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!.
• Axe Cop: PSYDROZON is outside!
• Girl Genius: While standard Wulfenbach clanks have three "eyes" at least one of those that attacks the people of Mechanicsburg has a single lens.
• Never Mind the Gap: Gretel is a one-eyed robot — but she's Ridiculously Human, actually quite nice, and maybe a little bit ditzy. Still, under one page in which she is shown enjoying a hot spring, the comic's author commented on the inhumanity of her face by noting that "it's a real challenge drawing Gretel relaxing, because she's got a big round eye that never blinks or narrows."

Western Animation

• A few Transformers:
  • Transformers: Animated has Shockwave, although he doesn't always just have the one eye. There's also Lugnut, but he's defined by the very human trait of zealous loyalty to his leader (also, Word of God is that those things on the side of his head are eyes, so that means he has five of them).
  • Transformers: Prime has Shockwave again, largely based on his Fall of Cybertron appearance.
  • Nearly every Transformers property has Shocky in there somewhere. Sometimes due to trademark loss, he's called Shockblast instead. One thing remains in all incarnations, though, and that's the single eye in the center of his head in lieu of anything like a face.
  • The in-universe reason for the Non-Standard Character Design is never explained in any of the cartoons.
• TriClops from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983). He's a cyborg who has three eyes, but can only use one at a time. Each one has a different power and color.
• The Donald Duck cartoon "Modern Inventions" had a one-eyed robot footman. Not evil, really, but rather imposing... and insists on taking one's hat, much to Donald's chagrin.
• Toon Bops: A non-villainous example. The robot in "I Want A Robot" only has one eye.
• On Batman: The Animated Series, the giant computer HARDAC in "Heart of Steel" had a single glowing red lens that flashed in time with his speech.
• The successor series, Batman Beyond, has the GOLEM labour robot, which has a single yellow eye, but doesn't speak.
• Ben 10: Upgrade and all Galvanic Mechamorphs are devoid of any facial features save for a singular eye that can shoot out Eye Beams. This eye transfers to whatever technology he possesses, along with Tron Lines.
• The second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon has a couple, including killer robots created by Baxter Stockman and Viral, a rogue A.I. in the year 2105, whenever she's in "her" physical form.
• Megas XLR has these too, as a shoutout/parody of the Gundam's Zakus. In the last episode, Rearview Mirror, we see an army of these things. Coop, the Glorft, and an Alternate Universe Jamie proceed to kick their collective asses. And of course the Glorft mechas themselves are a prime example.
• Heloise's snow-making mecha from the Jimmy Two-Shoes episode "A Cold Day in Miseryville", though it looks more cute than scary since its appearance was modeled after Cerbee.
• Another cute one: Bucky O Hare's Robot Buddy, Blinky.
• Nox's outfit◊ in the first episode of Wakfu is meant to intentionally invoke this look, despite Nox not actually being a robot. His strongest creation, Razortime, also has this appearance.
• Professor Ojo (Spanish for "eye") has a cyber helmet that invokes this aesthetic in Young Justice.
• The robot spy, from the Jonny Quest episode of the same name, is an iconic example.
• Monban in Littlest Pet Shop (2012) sports a visor-like area with one glowing red light, and is used as a security guard for the Largest Ever Pet Shop.
• All KVN units in Final Space.
• The Challenge Of The Gobots episode "Sentinel" was about UNECOM creating a giant robot with one eye and the Renegades using him in a scheme to wipe out all organic life.

Real Life

• Many washing machines, especially at laundromats, have a large, round window in the front. It is hardly designed to evoke fear, but it still has the look of a one-eyed machine.
• Lot of actual robots, usually running on simple primitive sensors have this design. This is because visual inputs is surprisingly not useful in terms of how machines perceive their surroundings. Robots in general struggle to make sense of visual data as we know it. While a bunch of new programs and experiments are trying to correct that, there is still a long way to go and most robots builders don't have access to such programs. Instead robots tend to use other inputs like touch or even sonar and radar to help build a useful map for the world around them. Without the need for 3d binocular vision, a single camera will service any of the visual needs they do have.
  • This trend is, however, slowly being broken by more advanced robots such as the Atlas from Boston Dynamics, which are beginning to employ stereoscopic (I.E. binoucular) cameras to great effect thanks to their powerful processors running advanced image processing software. Such cameras are also being considered for upcoming self-driving cars as an alternative (or a complement) to radar and lidar.
• AIBO, a Japanese company that manufactures Robot Dogs with varying efficiency, have their first few generations of robotic canines built with a single blue visor as it's sole facial feature. Later models averts it, however, with their newer canines having two eyes resembling a real puppy.
• Most military drones have their cameras and other sensors packed into a rotating globular module, which frequently resembles a single, large, unnatural-looking eye. There can be as many as five actual camera lenses, but that just makes it look like a multifaceted eye.

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