Sucker Punch Needs to Steal a Page from Insomniac and Bring Back Sly Cooper

I'll be honest: I have been huffing hopium for a new Sly Cooper game since 2013, and at this point my patient gamer card should probably be laminated. Sucker Punch Productions has been developing games since 1997, cut its teeth on Rocket: Robot on Wheels for the Nintendo 64, and then became a PlayStation exclusive house in 2002. That same era gave us the Sly Cooper series, a platformer about a raccoon from a long line of master thieves. It was pure PS2 magic.

Then the studio grew up. Infamous got darker, Ghost of Tsushima turned Sucker Punch into a major AAA powerhouse, and somewhere along the way Sly Cooper got locked in a safe and forgotten. To be fair, the original trilogy remaster landed on PS3 and PS Vita, and Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time arrived in 2013 courtesy of Sanzaru Games. But since then? Crickets. As of 2026, we are sitting on over a decade of silence while I slowly mutter Cooper Clan into the void.

Now, I get it. A few years back, Sucker Punch officially confirmed it has no plans to revisit past series. They say they have evolved beyond developing platformers. Okay, tough guy. But here is the kicker: Insomniac Games proves you can mature, rake in cash with Marvel titles, and still honor your legacy. Insomniac started with Spyro and Ratchet & Clank. The first Ratchet & Clank released the same year as the first Sly Cooper, by the way. But unlike Sucker Punch, Insomniac never ghosted its lombax. Through Resistance, Fuse, Sunset Overdrive, and Song of the Deep, Insomniac kept returning to Ratchet. That commitment eventually produced Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, widely considered one of the first true next-gen titles of the current era and a critical and commercial hit. You mean to tell me that level of success would hurt Sucker Punch? Preposterous.

Sucker Punch is currently working on a new open-world game. Good. Beautiful. I will play it. But following Insomniac's playbook would mean adding a new Sly Cooper to the pile next. And not a simple remaster—something that builds on the original. Insomniac honors Ratchet by evolving it, not by reheating it. That is the sauce. Show me how Sucker Punch has grown over two decades by handing me a truly next-gen Sly Cooper. Make me feel the silky stealth, the cartoon swagger, and the heist planning. It would not dent the studio's serious AAA reputation. It would supercharge its fan base.

Let us be real: gamers love fresh IPs, but a legacy follow-up lands differently. It says you remember the fans who bought your discs before you had beards. It says you respect where you came from. And it says you have the confidence to let an old raccoon steal the spotlight again. Is that too much to ask in 2026? I do not think so.

Here is my unsolicited advice in handy table form:

And a few things Sly does better than your average sad dad simulator:

🦝 A raccoon with a cane and a criminal record

🕶️ Playful stealth that never feels like homework

🎨 Cel-shaded style that ages like fine wine

👮‍♀️ Carmelita Fox, because the chemistry was always perfect

So yes, Sucker Punch, I am begging you: steal a page from Insomniac's book. You literally made a franchise about thieves, so steal back some goodwill. Until the studio makes it clear one way or another, I and every other Sly fan will keep holding out hope that the thieving raccoon will someday return. And when he does, I will be sitting in a dark gaming chair, coffee in hand, ready to be robbed of another twenty hours. If you need me before then, I will be replaying stealth games on PS Plus Extra and Premium while I wait.