Originally developed for the Amiga and DOS by Mirage's Instinct Design, it was ported to various video game consoles, including the Super NES, the Mega Drive, and the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer.

Developed by a team of five people, including former Bitmap Brothers member Sean Griffiths, Rise of the Robots was intended to utilize a high level of artificial intelligence (A.I.)

failed to materialize, and critics found that the demands of the impressive graphics resulted in choppy animation and overly simplistic combat, with each character having a very limited set of moves.

In the year 2043, Electrocorp is the world's largest megacorporation, leading the way in various technological and scientific fields, including medical research, and breaking more barriers than ever before.

Human society is now almost entirely governed by robot servants and automatons, leading to demands on Electrocorp— the world's foremost manufacturer and developer of advanced robotics— that eventually outstrip the company's ability to run its operations efficiently.

Dubbed The Supervisor, it learns at an unprecedented rate and quickly becomes the perfect multitasking, ultra-intelligent robot—the pinnacle of artificial intelligence—capable of managing every aspect of the plant's day-to-day operations.

The Supervisor even possesses the potential to control every robot, computer system, nuclear power plant, and military on the planet simultaneously, although it wisely remains disconnected from the outside world.

With no options left, infiltration of Metropolis 4 becomes impossible due to the army of robots guarding it like a fortress, and it is only a matter of time before the Supervisor establishes a connection to the outside world, leading to global destruction.

Rise of the Robots was developed for the Amiga and PC DOS platforms by Mirage's in-house, United Kingdom-based studio Instinct Design[1]—a team of five programmers led by former Bitmap Brothers member Sean Griffiths.

[2] Andy Clark, the programmer for the Amiga version, was responsible for coding the game's artificial intelligence using a series of data tables.

[2] The game features a soundtrack by Queen's guitarist Brian May,[3] whose solo album Back to the Light caught Mirage's attention.

[9] Rise of the Robots was propelled by a multimillion-pound marketing campaign, which led to a novel from Penguin Books, and discussions were held regarding toys, comics, an animated series, and a feature film.

[14] Coombs stated that Rise of the Robots was originally developed with the Amiga in mind, while the PC version was a "conversion 'upwards,' meaning additions could be made."

[9] Rise of the Robots was originally scheduled for release in February 1994, but was delayed because the developers wanted to "continue to perfect the graphics and enhance the gameplay as much as possible.

Davies highlighted several flaws, including the inability for players to turn around, the limited sound effects and music, the fact that most computer opponents could be defeated by repeatedly using a simple flying kick, and the static background graphics.

[3] Andy Nuttall of The One Amiga echoed these sentiments, stating that "[e]xcept on 'Hard' level, all but the Supervisor and one other opponent can be slaughtered by trapping them in the corner and inflicting repeated jump kicks."

"[31] GamePro panned the Game Gear version, summarizing that "the bad control, weak gameplay, and choppy animation infest this cart from start to finish."

They particularly criticized the moves as boringly basic and limited, noting that the choppy animation makes the player feel disconnected from what is happening on screen.

[28] GamePro labeled it "one of the most unappealing fighting games ever made for the SNES," citing the dark and bland color scheme and the "extremely weak and choppy" controls.

All four of their reviewers criticized it for having overlong cinemas, a severely limited number of moves, difficulty executing even basic punches and kicks, and long load times.

[29] GamePro also panned the 3DO version, commenting that "Rise offers deceptively good graphics—the rendered cinemas, characters, and backgrounds do their best to gloss over the choppy gameplay animation and lack of moves.

[38] Next Generation's 1998 retrospective on the failure of Rise of the Robots commented, "Most gamers now know not to trust packaging graphics, but this was a lesson that had to be learned the hard way.

The European-released Director's Cut edition featured a second CD containing two additional versions of the song, as well as computer-altered sound files of May saying various words and phrases from the game.