Happy twentieth birthday, Sly Cooper! Today we’re so completely satisfied (and somewhat bit shocked) to have a good time the 20-year anniversary of Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus! Where does the time go? Originally shipped on September 23, 2002 for PS2, this was Sly’s authentic journey (generally known as Sly Racoon in some components of the world) and our studio’s first-ever PlayStation recreation!

Before we prepared our social gathering hats and cake, we’ve got some model new Sly Cooper merchandise to disclose at this time to have a good time the milestone. But first we wished to look again on Sly’s legacy throughout the entire franchise and share reminiscences from a few of our group who helped form Sly Cooper into the collection we all know and love, again when a few of them had somewhat extra hair or rather less grey in it:

Doing stage design for Sly 1 was a terrific studying expertise. From prototyping utilizing LEGO for the Muggshot rooftop to numerous stage iterations that passed off to get the texture and gameplay excellent. I bear in mind so many various variations of ranges I labored on that even after I play it now I will be shocked at what the ultimate variations are!

– Rob McDaniel, Senior Technical Artist

Sly 1 was our first BIG recreation, and there have been a number of milestones the place the sport was very clearly vulnerable to getting canceled. To me, the largest breakthrough was the milestone we invented the “Binoc-u-com” the place Bentley and Sly would hatch plans – however actually it was an effective way to present the participant instructions with out it feeling ham-fisted.

At the time we have been constructing Sly, so many video games had been pushing the visible execution bar upwards of their cutscenes – means past what we have been able to on the time. One of our greatest choices was to reverse that development and make our cutscenes extra graphic as a substitute—which gave us one thing distinct and distinctive, but in addition prevented combating an arms race we’d by no means win. Great alternative, and one we used for all of the Sly video games, and advanced for InWell-known and past.

Sly was our first recreation with skinned characters – and getting his TAIL proper turned out to be one of many trickiest bits. We created a bunch of failed options together with customized spline controls for the animators. The “right” reply ended up being to animate simply the very base of his tail, and construct a real-time simulation for the remainder. To today we nonetheless have “tails” simulations we use in locations!

Favorite second? The ending of Sly 1 – that’s gotta be one in every of my favourite sequences we’ve ever shipped! The remaining bit with the 10-second head-start is perfection.

Finally, I bear in mind how small the group was! The 25 of us within the credit was your complete studio, together with our testers and the workplace workers! Seems a very long time in the past!

– Brian Fleming, Co-Founder

For one mission in Sly 3, I animated a lemonade consuming recreation. Bentley needed to button mash by way of some poses to out-drink a number of NPCs earlier than a bar room brawl broke out. It was primitive, nevertheless it was ok to get us to about 3 weeks earlier than we shipped when one of many animators lastly changed it with one thing higher. I’m undecided if it was a good suggestion or cautionary story, nevertheless it was a enjoyable instance of the give attention to teamwork that drives Sucker Punch to today. We had a ton of customized mechanics in Sly 3 like psychic NPC management, crusing pirate ships, treasure maps, biplane fight, disguises, firework fight, red-blue 3D and hotseat multiplayer. That wouldn’t have been attainable with out a ton of teamwork.

– Adrian Bentley, Programming Director

Back within the Sly Cooper days, the group was a lot smaller, and consequently every of us set to work on all kinds of issues. It felt nice laying out metropolis streets one week, then serving to tune pirate ship fight the following. Sly’s cartoon actuality allowed us to place in no matter piqued our curiosity that month. We’d make choices round no matter obtained essentially the most laughs. It was a bohemian environment I’m deeply grateful to have been part of. Also, the voice actor who performed Bentley (Matt Olsen) labored at a file retailer close to my home. It was cool catching up with him on weekends and getting recommendations on bands I’d by no means hear of.  

– Nate Fox, Creative Director

It’s onerous to consider 20 years have handed because the world first met Sly, however we wished to verify to throw him a celebration in model. We kicked off the celebration earlier this week with The Sly Collection, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, and Bentley’s Hackpack becoming a member of the Classics Catalog for Premium members on PlayStation Plus*. Beyond that, at this time we’re completely satisfied to debut some new artwork and merchandise to honor the franchise’s legacy.

First, authentic Sly Cooper artwork director Dev Madan created a fully beautiful tribute to twenty years of Sly, with a ravishing authentic piece of artwork jam-packed with references and easter eggs.

It’s simple to get misplaced gazing the entire wonderful particulars, and at this time we’ve got two other ways so that you can get this attractive poster in your house.

First, we’ve partnered with our mates at Cook & Becker for an extremely high-quality nice artwork print of the anniversary artwork. The print, on FSC-certified Radiant White 270gsm paper, can be accessible in two sizes: a 28” x 40” model restricted to 40 hand-numbered items accessible beginning at $225 USD, and a 20″ x 28″ model restricted to 150 hand-numbered items accessible beginning at $120 USD. Both variations will solely be accessible whereas provides final, and can embrace a Certificate of Authenticity signed by artist Dev Madan.

The prints will start transport in early October 2022. You can pre-order beginning at this time at Cook & Becker with transport accessible worldwide.

We even have an alternate poster print of the artwork accessible on the PlayStation Gear retailer – an 18″ x 24″ print on pound 100 gloss textual content paper. It can be accessible for $24.95 USD with an estimated ship date of December 2.

Dev Madan has additionally created a model new Sly Cooper twentieth Anniversary t-shirt design accessible on the PlayStation Gear retailer, that includes model new artwork of Bentley, Murray, Carmelita Fox and Sly himself! This 4.3-ounce, 100% combed ring-spun cotton shirt additionally options the Sly Cooper twentieth Anniversary brand on the precise sleeve. This can be accessible for $33.95 USD with an estimated ship date of December 2.

Shipping for PlayStation Gear is offered within the following areas:

• LATAM: Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay

• EU: Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, UK

Pre-orders for each the shirt and poster can be found beginning at this time on the PlayStation Gear retailer!

And lastly at this time, our mates at Fangamer have created a model new Sly Cooper twentieth Anniversary Plush! This cute model of Sly sits at about 9 inches tall, and features a plush cane that may connect to Sly’s arms by way of a magnet. Fangamer will start transport the Sly plush worldwide early subsequent yr, and you’ll join now at Fangamer to be alerted as quickly as orders grow to be accessible!

Thank you for 20 years of assist for Sly Cooper! In just some weeks, Sucker Punch will have a good time our twenty fifth anniversary general, and whereas we’ve moved on to new worlds since then, our work on Sly is an unimaginable a part of that legacy that we’ll at all times be happy with. We hope everybody enjoys revisiting the collection or discovering it for the primary time on PlayStation Plus, and in case you decide up any of the merchandise we introduced at this time, please present us your assortment on Twitter by sending pics to @SuckerPunchProd!

*Game library varies over time, area/nation and plan. PS Plus is topic to a recurring subscription charge taken mechanically till cancellation. Terms apply: play.st/psplus-usageterms