Riddlerbots

""Ah, both contestants are finally here. Tonight, folks, we'we got riddles galore but first let me introduce my beautiful assistants.""

- The Riddler introducing the Riddlerbots to Batman and Catwoman

""Why rely on others for help when you can design, program, engineer and manufacture it yourself.""

- The Riddler

Riddlerbots are a unique type of enemy found in Batman: Arkham Knight. They are designed and built by The Riddler in an attempt to make himself less dependent on Gotham City's average street thugs and criminals whom he considered inferior and useless.

They are encountered in most Riddler Challenges that do not require the Batmobile and attack similarly to normal human thugs. In combat, they yield the same amount of points when they are defeated as a thug. However, they generally take more strikes to be knocked to the ground and can be blasted away by the Remote Electrical Charge. Gameplay-wise, their design is very similar to that of the Joker Robots previously used by Harley Quinn in Harley Quinn's Revenge except that Riddlerbots are still marked with counter icons unlike the Joker Robots.

Green
The most common type of Riddlerbots. They possess no additional gimmicks, and can be attacked by anyone.

Blue and Red
The second most common variant. While similar to the default Riddlerbots, blue ones can only be struck and countered by Batman, and red ones could only be struck and countered by Catwoman. Trying to strike or counter the wrong color causes an electric shock that ends any possible combos and deals damage. All of them are still affected by gadgets ( the REC and Catwoman's Whip are very useful against them) and certain Special Combo moves, such as those of Catwoman which let her deal damage without striking the bots directly, as well as Dual Takedowns. Characters can also safely jump over them like they do any electricity-based enemies.

Gunners
The fourth version: they are painted blood red, armed with machine guns, and are only encountered in several challenges throughout Gotham. They are the rarest variant of the robots.

Arkham Knight Incident
Riddler uses his robots in his attempt to finally beat Batman. Tired of the failures of Gotham's regular human criminals, Riddler created the robots to hide his riddles around Gotham, as well as using them to fight both Batman and Catwoman during Batman's attempt to free Catwoman from the Pinkney Orphanage. Later, Batman collected a voice chip from a destroyed Riddlerbot and uses it to control them via the Voice Synthesizer: something that Riddler is not pleased with.

Catwoman's Revenge Incident.
Riddler later planned to have his Riddlerbots bust him out of the GCPD Lockup the day after Halloween. However, after Catwoman breaks into his lair, Riddler then sends his Riddlerbots to kill her, but they fail. They are destroyed for good when Catwoman, after she robs Riddler of his money, sets the factory to self destruct and leaves.

Aside from this, they were alluded to by the Riddler Thugs in the main premises of the toy shop, where it is heavily implied that they were planning on backstabbing Riddler by stealing portions of his bank account as revenge for his replacing them with the Riddlerbots.

Trivia

 * According to Riddler, they are programmed with a basic concept of religion, with himself as their God.
 * They are programmed to not listen to anyone with an IQ under 150.
 * Thugs in Gotham can be heard mentioning having seen the Riddler-bots.
 * Every time Batman uses the Voice Synthesizer to manipulate the Riddler-bots, Riddler will be stunned and grow increasingly angry. Ultimately, when Batman clears the final test with Riddler-bots, Riddler uploads malware to the Riddler-bots as punishment.
 * Apart from their distinctly more violent takedown animations (when their heads are ripped off by Batman, for example), many combat animations for Riddlerbots are appropriated from those for normal henchmen. That's why they can be stunned, countered by hitting at their "throats" or crotches, or by Catwoman's kisses.