Setting

The world of Sly Cooper is a version of the real world that is populated by anthropomorphic animals, with film noir and comic book motifs. The focus of the story is Sly Cooper, a young adult raccoon and the latest descendant in a line of master thieves who pass down their expert techniques from generation to generation using the "Thievius Racoonus", a book which contains all the Cooper Family's secrets and tricks. While the Cooper family has accumulated a massive amount of wealth through their thieving ways, Sly places greater value on his friendship with his partners, Bentley and Murray, and his flirting and teasing relationship with Inspector Carmelita.

Major characters

Sly Cooper: Sly Cooper (Kevin Miller) is the protagonist of the series. He is a young male adult raccoon that is part of a long line of master thieves. Early in his life, he witnessed the death of his father when the Fiendish Five stole his family's Thievius Raccoonus. He was forced into an orphanage, where he met his best friends, Bentley and Murray. With them, he forms his gang of thieves, the Cooper Gang. He is nimblest of the gang, so he is sent out the most on missions. He is therefore the most played character. He uses a hooked cane as a multi-purpose tool.
Bentley: Bentley is the brains of Sly's gang. He is a turtle that is skilled with electronics, computers, and gadgets, and generally helps with reconnaissance and mission-planning while Sly's out in the field. Later on, he breaks his back under the jaws of his enemy, so he is forced to live in a wheelchair, which he handily equips with gadgets.
Murray: Murray is the muscle of the Gang and Sly's wheelman, in charge of driving the Cooper Gang's van to various locations. As a large pink hippopotamus, he is amazingly strong. He often ventures to the field on missions requiring such strength. When Bentley was injured, he blamed himself and left the Gang.
Carmelita Fox: Carmelita Fox, a member of Interpol, is Sly's nemesis, as well as love interest. She is a vixen who has her mind set on capturing Sly, but also demonstrates some romantic feelings for him, which Sly often uses to escape capture at the last minute.

Common gameplay elements

The games are primarily a third person platform game. The player controls Sly or one of his companions through many missions of several levels, relying mostly on stealth to avoid encounters and alarms while collecting treasures or other items. Sly is very agile, and is able to use many of the features of the architecture for stealth, indicated to the player by a blue glow, explained in-game as a visible manifestation of Sly's "thief senses." For example, Sly can perch on the top of sharp points, sneak along a narrow ledge, or use his cane to swing from hooks. Sly also uses his cane to defeat foes, although it makes noise that may attract other foes. He prefers to use sneak attacks when possible, due to his little endurance. Due to his heritage, Sly has a number of special moves that he learns through the games that can also increase his stealth or speed, or allow him to eliminate foes silently. The player also may play as Bentley with his gadgets, or Murray with his strength, and many minor companions in the third game. There are also mini-games scattered throughout the gameplay.
Each game is broken into a series of heists, and to accomplish the heist, Sly and his gang must complete several sub-missions. In the first game, each sub-mission was located on a level accessible from the main heist level, while the second and third games used a nonlinear, open world approach to have various missions located around the same large level. There is typically a boss fight at the end of each heist as the conclusion to the mission.

Comics

Issue #1 acted as a story between the first and second game, apparently taking place sometime within the 2 year span between them. The plot consists of two flashback stories. One is a flashback to the Cooper gang's first taste of thief work as children at the Happy Camper Orphanage (stealing cookies from a greedy sitter), and the other detailing the first time Carmelita and Sly met, which the two relay to each other with opposing points of view during a rare peaceful conversation with each other.

Issue #2 takes place after the events of Sly 2 and leads up to the events within Sly 3. The story is broken into four parts. The first part consists of Sly finding a member of his father's gang, McSweeny, in a maximum-security prison due to an invitation. McSweeny, an anthropomorphic, super strong walrus tells Sly of a massive vault on a remote island and its location which contains the accumulated treasure of all the Cooper family members stating it as Sly's inheritance. Part two details Sly and Murray breaking into a hospital to rescue the injured Bentley from the authorities, though at the end, Murray demands that Sly flee with Bentley while he stays behind to deal with the officers. Part three consists of Carmelita reviewing footage of Sly and Murray's attempt (with Bentley notably absent) to steal the map to the Cooper Vault's location from a Venetian museum. But Sly later breaks into her office while she is asleep and steals the vault map from under Carmelita's nose. The final part takes place at the Cooper gang's home in Paris, with Sly reviewing what is needed to get to the vault, while Bentley works on arming his wheelchair with a wide array of gadgets and weaponry to help Sly in the field. Murray returns after his escapes and informs the others that he is leaving the gang and disappears to parts unknown.

Future Games

Brian Fleming of Sucker Punch Productions stated in an interview that "We're broadening ourselves a little bit, taking on some new challenges," but also noted that "I think it's extremely likely that you'll see us return to the 'Sly Cooper' franchise at some point in the future." An Easter egg found in the Sucker Punch game inFamous shows a movie called "Sly Cooper 4" on the building's marquis; there is also a Sly Cooper symbol on Cole's backpack. Also, a trophy for finding the game's elusive "Dead drops" awards players with the "You're so Sly" Trophy.