Sly Cooper is 20 Years Old, and I Want Better for Him

Earlier in the summertime, PlayStation developer Sucker Punch revealed that regardless of months of rumors saying in any other case, nobody—not themselves or one other developer—had been engaged on a comply with up to both the Sly Cooper or Infamous franchises. With the studio now centered on what’s probably a Ghost of Tsushima sequel, the 2 franchises that helped it set up a presence as a prime tier PlayStation developer are on ice, and can probably stay that approach for one more couple of years. And whereas usually such information would in the end be disappointingly unsurprising, this stings only a little bit greater than standard as a result of the Sly franchise is now 20 years previous.

Sly Cooper & the Thievius Raccoonus launched on the PlayStation 2 on September 23, 2002. The titular Sly Cooper hails from a household of grasp thieves and, with the assistance of his crew—Bentley, a mind turtle and Murray, the hippo wheelman—travels world wide to recuperate the pages of his household’s titular tome from the gang who killed his dad and left him an orphan. Like most video games again then starring an animal protagonist, Sly was a platformer; every of the sport’s 5 hub zones contained ranges the place a key awaited on the finish that will be used to get Sly to battle the zone’s boss and recuperate a web page from his household e book. Those pages would then result in a brand new mechanic to boost his thief repertoire.

Despite opinions praising it as a strong platformer, the sport didn’t promote terribly nicely at first, however ultimately offered sufficient copies to affix PlayStation’s “Greatest Hits” lineup. With that success got here two sequels, each of which offered and reviewed equally nicely sufficient: 2004’s Band of Thieves made Bentley and Murray fully playable characters (swapped out through a safehouse in every location) with their very own missions because the trio pulled off a collection of heists throughout the gloe. Honor Among Thieves, the trilogy nearer that launched in 2005, had the trio develop their gang to achieve the vault of the Cooper lineage, although these characters might solely be performed for a handful of missions in particular circumstances.

The largest subject the Sly franchise ended up having was that it was often overshadowed by its brothers in arms, Insomniac Games’ Ratchet & Clank and Naughty Dog’s Jak & Daxter. Despite the three franchises being lumped in collectively as a result of their shared standing of starting as customary platformers, Sly was principally the outlier of the trinity, not helped by Jak and Ratchet being geared in the direction of barely older audiences. Even as their protagonists had been respectively a mute (at first) elf with a chatty weasel on his shoulder and a cat with a speaking backpack, these franchises’ concentrate on weapons, some raunchy humor, and a Teen score had been extra attractive in comparison with the E for Everyone adventures of a raccoon who does crimes with a turtle and a hippo.

But while the Sly Cooper franchise didn’t have the edge of its peers, it made up for this in style. It was the way the games fully embraced being a cartoon by calling each location an “episode,” complete with a splashy card and title like you were watching a cartoon after you got home from school. Along with cel-shaded cutscenes that gave a brief rundown on the villain, who was usually some average person that decided to turn to crime out of pure spite, it was the little things like comic book sound effects popping up as enemies were defeated or how footsteps would be accentuated by guitar plucks when sneaking up behind guards or along rooftops. Even as stealth and crime games have remained fairly in favor in the industry, there isn’t anything like Sly Cooper out there right now.

After Honor Among Thieves wrapped a bow on the trilogy, things got…weird for the franchise. Sucker Punch entered the PlayStation 3 era with its superhero saga Infamous, and the question of if the studio would ever return to Sly was answered once and never came up again. In 2013, Sanzaru Games brought the series back with Thieves in Time, which was…fine, from what I remember, but I certainly didn’t play it as much as I did those earlier games. The following year saw a trailer for a CG film adaptation from Rainmaker and Blockade Entertainment that actually nonetheless appears fairly good. (Except Murray, one thing about his proportions and face really feel off.) Sadly, it was a film that slowly fell aside earlier than ultimately being cancelled, thanks partially to the field workplace failure of Rainmaker’s Ratchet & Clank movie.

So the place does that depart the franchise now? On a sport entrance, at the moment iced, as beforehand said; however there’ve been rumblings in recent years a couple of TV present in manufacturing from PlayStation Studios. Given how onerous Sony’s making an attempt to get their video games to small and silver screens—they’re doing a Gravity Rush film, of all issues, after shutting down the studio that created that collection—it wouldn’t be out of the query, nor would it not be fully unwelcome, given how Sly has tv principally encoded into its DNA. But as a lot as I’d stay up for that, I feel I’d quite a brand new Sly sport first. Like how Rift Apart served as a reminder of what made Ratchet & Clank so particular, it might really feel unsuitable to convey again the Cooper Gang with out giving them one other likelihood to steal gamers’ hearts via a brand new sport.

You can play the Sly games via streaming if you’ve got the Premium tier of PlayStation Plus.

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