Sly Cooper

The maddening thing about the death of the Sly Cooper franchise is Sucker Punch’s PlayStation 2 platformer series was done at one point and we could have just left it alone and not ended up in this mess. The trilogy ended on a high note in 2005 with Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves. Then, Sanzaru Games, who worked on the PlayStation 3 remasters, pitched a fourth game to Sony all about traveling to the titular thief’s ancestors’ times and pulling off heists across the timeline. Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time was a solid new entry that managed to modernize the formula while staying true to its roots.. The problem was: It ended on a devastating cliffhanger. Sly was trapped in the timeline and has been stuck in Ancient Egypt ever since.

Sanzaru planned to wrap things up with a DLC set in Egypt, but Sony refused to greenlight it. Since then, there has been a planned film and TV series, neither of which got off the ground. Sucker Punch confirmed in 2022 that there were no plans to revive the series, so Sony damned one of its PS2 mascots to a life trapped in a different time. They’ll slap him on promotional material and throw a party for his 20th anniversary, but won’t save him. Give me Sly Cooper 5 Sony. Or make an animated short or even just an official art piece of him escaping Ancient Egypt. Save him! — Kenneth Shepard