Sly 4: Thieves of Time

Sly 4: Thieves of Time is a stealth-action platforming video game developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It is the fourth installment in the Sly Cooper series and a sequel to Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves. It marks the beginning of a new Sly trilogy for the next generation of consoles.

Set six years after the events of the previous game, Sly 4 follows titular protagonist, Sly Cooper, and his partners in crime, Bentley and Murray. The story centers around their mission to travel through time to retrieve the missing pages of the Thievious Raccoonus and rescue Carmeltia Fox from a vengeful old enemy.

Episode 1
Six years after the events of Sly 3, Sly Cooper is now a constable in the International Police Force alongside Carmelita Fox. As a couple they have been together solving crimes for years now, and have established for themselves quite a reputation in the police force for their solid teamwork and infiltration abilities. Sly has naturally been seen as an outsider in the organization, and most other enforcement officers have been distrustful of Sly, despite Carmelita's constant defense of his honesty. This has strengthened their relationship even more, though Sly has still relucted to tell Carmelita the truth behind his alleged "amnesia".

At midnight in Paris, Sly and Carmelita, alongside a small platoon of gorilla infantry, establish a plan to infiltrate a crime ring warehouse and intercept a shipment of illegal contraband. The operation goes wrong when the mysterious ring leader they've been following for months is revealed to be Rajan, who instantly recognizes Sly Cooper and enters a furious rage. The warehouse is lit into flames and is almost destroyed, with Sly barely escaping from the warehouse alive.

Rajan is taken into custody and during interrogation taunts Sly, claiming that he can sense through smell the truth behind his lies, and that "he can't run from his past forever."

Sly and Carmelita use Rajan to try to find his two mysterious partners, who escaped the warehouse explosion. An anonymous informant emails Sly, and through his data Sly discovers that Neyla was Rajan's daughter, and that he has been vengeful against the Cooper Clan ever since her death nine years ago. Around two weeks later after this revelation, Sly and Carmelita attend a ball at a chic museum in Paris, and Sly is outed as a traitor by the weasel. He is instantaneously placed under arrest, and Sly is forced to flee through the museum under the pursuit of law enforcement. When Sly is rushed into a corner, he finally surrenders, until an RC chopper crashes through the window and drops a smoke bomb, giving Sly time to escape.

Bentley takes Sly to a small suite he has rented with Penelope in downtown Paris. The entire city has been placed into a lockdown as law enforcement searches the streets for Sly. Bentley tells Sly that someone has been messing with time in order to frame Sly for the murder of Colonel Gursley, and that it is his fault because the time machine that he has used to do so was created by Bentley.

Sly, Bentley and Murray sneak into Sly and Carmelita's house in order to find the evidence, but Carmelita catches Sly, Bentley and Murray red-handed. Distraught and in tears over Sly's apparent betrayal, she unleashes a flurry of blaster bolts on them, until someone else breaks into the house. Everyone freezes, and Rajan slowly walks into the room. Murray instantly tackles him but is overwhelmed by Rajan's mysterious sidekick who wields a dark cane almost identical to Sly's. Bentley is knocked out of his wheelchair and lies helpless on the floor. Vowing revenge against Sly for what he did to Neyla, Rajan kidnaps Carmelita before retreating into a time portal created by The Inventor just as Sly leaps into nothingness trying to grab her.

Sly slams his fist on the empty floor, and Murray helps Bentley back into his wheelchair. Sly laments that she's gone, but Murray tells Sly not to worry, and tells him that they'll get her back.

''"We've been through tougher than this, buddy. We'll get her back, I promise." - Murray''

"But how?"

"We'll have to fight them by their own tactics, and travel through time until we find where they've taken her. Rajan said something about the great lark, if my hypothesis is correct that means he's probably taken Carmelita to some period in Feudal Japan. Let's get back to the safehouse. Sly, get ready to meet your ancestors."

Heading back to the safesuite, Sly, Bentley and Murray resolve that they have no choice but to travel through time to rescue Carmelita and take back the Thievious Raccoonus. After saying farewell to Penelope, the suite is broken into by a small group of interpol. Sly, Bentley and Murray run to the van and after a high speed chase through the streets of Paris, Bentley panics and activates the time machine too quickly, accidentally transporting them to the Wild West.

Episode 8
Rajan is shot by Carmelita, and falls off the spire to his death. Everything seems okay until the gang sees a distant figure flying towards them in the distance. They don't realize until it is too late that the figure is Clockwerk, who slams into the tower causing it to crumble. Everyone rushes into the plane just as the tower falls apart, and Clockwerk chases them by air above icy Russia. Murray is driving the van beneath everyone, and they skydive out of the plane together just as Otto Van Cooper sacrifices himself. The gang are caught by Murray, and after Clockwerk kills Otto Van, he starts to swoop down for the van. Clockwerk grabs the cooper van in his claws and begins to rip it apart. Something in Clockwerk's armor interacts at an electric frequency with the van, and the gang is unexpectedly teleported to ancient Egypt.

Villains
Episode 2: Iguana

Episode 3: Praying Mantis

Episode 4: Macaque

Episode 5: Blind Mole and his overly talkative squirrel.

Episode 7: Lion

Episode 9: Hyena

Episode 1: Sly Cooper and Carmelita Fox in...A Fateful Reunion (Paris)
Title Card: Sly and Carmelita with silhouettes of Bentley and Murray in the background in front of them.

Mission 1: Tutorial. (The Warehouse Bust)

Mission: Rajan Interrogation

Mission: Ballroom Escape

Mission: Finding Murray

Mission: Catching the Pelican

Mission: Infiltrating Sly's house

Bottles: None

Treasure: None

Guards: Mice, Skunks, and Flashlight Pigs.

Episode 2: Sly Cooper and the Gang are Back In...as the Sun Sets West
Guards: Armadillos, Coyotes, Flashlight Cows

Villain: Lizard

Gameplay
In a throwback to Sly 1, each hub world minus the first has three unlockable fortress levels. The levels can be unlocked using keys that are found throughout the episode whether outside in the hub world or in an interior navigated during one of the missions. These "forts" are platforming centric levels filled with collectables, and even a time trial mode. A small handful of them are even for Bentley or Murray only.

Main Menu
The main menu screen like all other entries in the series, is preceded by a brief cutscene. This time it is the silhouette of Sly Cooper navigating the streets of Paris towards the Water-Alley Warehouse, with Carmelita following suit in the background. They pass a sucker punch billboard along the way, until Sly climbs through a window and the camera is then focused on Carmelita. The camera rotates around Carmelita as she spies on the warehouse from her vantage point, occasionally she'll check her blaster's voltage meters. In the dark grey clouds above the city, subtle shapes and images of events from the previous trilogy can be seen.

Press start to begin a new game.