Doctor Cray Z. Mallardo is hired by Chip Chayken as the newest inventor on OCP's payroll. Only Chip's secretary, Diana Powers, clues into Mallardo's true nature as he compares himself favorably to Hitler. Mallardo wishes to create a powerful super computer called NeuroBrain to take over Delta City. For this, he requires fresh human brains and has been using local racist gangs to harvest them for him along with Chip. In the end, they harvest Diana's brain to serve as the basis for the machine and try to take over Delta City with it.
Robocop, meanwhile, attempts to deal with local criminal, Pudface Morgan, who is broken out of jail by Chip to stop him and temporarilly "kills" Murphy with a Cobra Cannon. Murphy is reactivated by the Old Man and goes to stop Mallardo, receiving help from Diane Powers in her new AI form.
Sergeant Parks, meanwhile, struggles with a young orphan named Gadget who is living out of an awful orphanage and is witness to Chip's murders. Jimmy Murphy, Alex's son, briefly ends up with the Dogtown Boys that are one of the white supremacist gangs of Dogtown.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: The Old Man is far less deranged than Doctor Mallardo and better to have in charge of OCP.
- Benevolent A.I.: Diane Powers becomes one of these due to having her brain become the center of NeuroBrain.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Hammy villains they may be, but Pudface very nearly kills Robo in a sneak attack, while Mallardo is indirectly responsible for quite a body count and personally harvested material from the victims.
- BFG: The Cobra Cannon makes its return and actually one shots Robocop.
- Bittersweet Ending: The villains' plot is foiled, and Parks opts to adopt Gadget. On the other hand, Murphy refuses to tell his wife and son who he really is, saying he can't be the family man they need no matter how much he wants to be.
- Cannon Fodder: The Dogtown Boys do a lot of grunt work for Mallardo and Chip, and they're expected to confront Robo during the climax. Pudface doesn't think they're up to the task, but Chip privately tells him that the boys are simply cannon fodder at this point and that he's the one getting the real weaponry.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: OCP as always but Chip takes the cake, murdering homeless individuals to help with Doctor Mallardo's experiments.
- Crying Wolf: Gadget hates the orphanage she's stuck at, due to both it not being as nice as it appears on TV and the fact she has passed the age at which kids usually get adopted. She keeps making up wild stories to get Parks or anyone who will listen to send her somewhere else. Then she sees one of the victims of the supposed Dogtown Ripper and tries to report it, but she's brushed off as a liar and sent back to the orphanage. Robo only ends up believing her because his equipment indicated a very high probability she's telling the truth.
- Denser and Wackier: Both Mallardo and Pudface feel like they belong in Gotham City rather than Detroit.
- Disposable Vagrant: Before Diana, those killed by the Dogtown Ripper are random folks on the street that most people wouldn't miss.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: Doctor Mallardo engages in these antics with OCP's board of directors.
- The Dog Bites Back: Diana gives Mallardo the elevator ride of a lifetime as payback for what was done to her. He's a panicky mess by the time she releases him in front of clearly confused cops.
- Dramatic Irony: Diana was used as a test subject for the experiment because she demonstrated she was smarter than it had appeared. Meanwhile, Madigan struggles to get a promotion because (as Parks put it) she made the mistake of proving she was smarter than the ones who make the decision.
- Eviler than Thou: The Dogtown Boys are quite nasty, easily putting a scare into Jimmy and any civilians they come across. Ahead of the climax, they're told they'll be answering Pudface, which they object to, due to him being an outsider. Pudface very quickly reminds the boys where they really are in the pecking order by restraining their leader and threatening to beat him to death with his own bat.Pudface: Do as I say, or I'll kill you. How do you like them politics?
- Flashback: Driving away from the orphanage after seeing Nancy there looking for Jimmy, Murphy recalls being gunned down by Boddicker's gang and a Rage Against the Reflection over what he's become.
- Freudian Excuse: After seeing the true conditions of the orphanage and how one of the staffers brazenly lied to his face, Parks says it's not hard to see how Gadget became so adept at lying.
- I'll Kill You!: Diana was initially not so perturbed about what was done to her, as she assumed her body was still intact somewhere else. When told her body was actually disposed of to destroy any evidence of what happened, she shouts this at Mallardo.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Robocop loses all of his memories due to Electric Torture by Chip.
- Mad Scientist: Doctor Mallardo is a mad scientist who has created a cybernetic super computer to run Delta City.
- Makes Us Even: Diana manages to root out the damage done to Robo and get him back in full operation. After doing so, she tells him where to find Mallardo and to save her, which he does with an anti-virus upload.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Mallardo needs organs? Murder. Mallardo wants to take over OCP? Murder. Mallardo has an AI that is good, not evil? Murder.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: "Cray Z Mallardo" is not the name for anyone but a Mad Scientist.
- Not Quite Dead: After causing an electrical surge, Mallardo thinks he's finally gotten rid of Diana for good. Then the system starts to reboot, and he knows immediately what it means.
- Organ Theft: The Dogtown Ripper is stealing the brains of individuals for what is actually Doctor Mallardo's experiments.
- Orphanage of Fear: Gadget comes from one of these that is a more realistic example than most, being a dump where the children are just parked in front of a TV all day while their boss embezzles the funds set aside for their care.
- Out of the Inferno: Similar to the gun shop thieves in the opening of RoboCop 2, Pudface fires a rocket at Murphy's car in a failed attempt to kill him, only for Murph to step out of the burning wreckage just fine. It's arguably more impressive than the one in 2 given one: it took just one rocket, whereas the attack in 2 took two rockets to flip the car over each time and it only exploded after sustained machine gun fire; two: the explosion from the sole rocket here was much bigger than the explosion in 2; and three: unlike the gun shopper robbers, who thought it was just a normal cop they fired at, Pudface knew full damn well it was RoboCop he was attacking and he aimed directly at Murphy.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: The Dogtown Boys hate all foreigners and homeless people, never quite specifying its non-whites they loathe.
- Rage Against the Reflection: According to the flashback, in this version, a helmetless Robo did this after regaining his memories.
- Revenge: Pudface Morgan is motivated by his desire to get revenge on Alex Murphy for deforming his face.
- Serial Killer: The Dogtown Ripper is believed to be one when he's actually Chip working with the Dogtown Boys.
- Tagalong Kid: Gadget becomes this as she struggles to escape the orphanage she's in.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Parks opts to adopt Gadget rather than send her back to the orphanage she hates so much.
- Villain Has a Point: Diana is so mad about what was done to her that she threatens to crash the system just to wreck Mallardo's dream project. He reminds her of the citywide chaos that would cause, such as an abundance of traffic accidents and the shutdown of hospital life support systems. She looks over the data and sees that he's right.
