Sly 2: Band of Thieves is a 2004 stealth action video game developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation 2. It is the second installment of the Sly Cooper series, and the sequel to Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (2002).
In Sly 2: Band of Thieves, players primarily control the titular protagonist Sly, with the ultimate goal of destroying pieces of the character Clockwerk in each world. Gameplay is similar to the first game, but features various improvements, including a health meter for characters, modifications to combat, a mission hub world, and revamped gameplay for side characters Bentley and Murray. Characters can improve their abilities using power-ups and skill upgrades which can be unlocked by opening safes in each world, purchased by collecting coins, or and purchasing them from safehouses via ThiefNet.
Sly 2: Band of Thieves received positive reviews, with critics praising its graphics, cel shaded art style, story, music, and gameplay, and considered it a significant improvement over the first game. It has been frequently ranked as one of the best PlayStation 2 games of all time. It was followed by Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves in 2005, and was remastered in 2010 alongside it and its predecessor for the PlayStation 3 by Sanzaru Games as The Sly Collection. Alongside its successor, it was digitally re-released for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in 2024.
Gameplay
Premise
Like its predecessor, Sly 2: Band of Thieves is a stealth action-adventure video game. The gameplay is also freeform, where the player can perform other activities, such as looting from guards, from the mission currently assigned. She is now assisted by Constable Neyla, who grew up poor in New Delhi, India, before using persuasion skills to enter and garner high grades at a British university; Interpol recently hired her to use them for infiltration into criminal institutions. The Contessa, a leading prison warden and criminal psychologist, has also been hired by the police department for her hypnotherapy techniques, which have been successful in deincentivizing criminal behavior.
Sly 2: Band of Thieves is double the length of its predecessor, lasting eight stages and five worlds. Jean-Bison is in Canada extracting natural resources, such as chopping down trees, to tame "the Wild North". He utilizes a train system spanning across the nation's plains to import goods for the Klaww Gang.
Plot
Two years after the defeat of Clockwerk, Sly, Bentley, and Murray breaks into the national history museum in Cairo, Egypt to steal and destroy Clockwerk's parts so he could never return. However, the gang realizes in the heist that the Clockwerk parts had already been stolen. Carmelita Fox shows up and accuses Sly of stealing the parts, but her new assistant, a Bengal tiger named Constable Neyla, suggests that Cooper's crew was not behind the theft, but that it was the work of the Klaww gang. After a quick getaway, they begin their investigations into the mysterious Klaww Gang, and begin to hunt them down.
The first member of the Klaww Gang is Dimitri, a misunderstood marine iguana artist who owns a nightclub in Paris, France. Dimitri uses Clockwerk's tail feathers to print money. After a series of jobs, Sly defeats Dimitri and steals the feathers. Dimitri is arrested by Carmelita, while Sly and the gang escape. The second member of the Klaww gang is Rajan, a powerful Bengal Tiger from India who possesses Clockwerk's wings and heart. After obtaining the wings, Rajan flees with the heart into the jungle. After obtaining the heart in a fight, Sly and Murray are trapped and arrested along with Rajan by the Contessa, who runs a hypnosis prison in Prague, the Czech Republic. Bentley immediately heads to the prison, where he learns that the Contessa (a black widow spider) is actually a secret member of the Klaww gang, who hypnotizes the prisoners to tell them where their loot is. He then manages to get Sly out and, after a series of jobs, Murray is set free. After a lull, they chase the Contessa to her castle where, despite a small fight between the Countess and Neyla, they steal Clockwerk's eyes; the Contessa is later arrested by Neyla.
After surviving the prison, the gang follows Rajan's shipments to sail north to Canada. Here they encounter another member of the Klaww gang, Jean Bison, an American bison who was frozen in the mid-19th century but brought back to life by global warming. The group has to steal Clockwerk's stomach and lungs possessed by Bison, who uses them as engine parts for his trains. After stealing all the parts, the gang escapes the scene. The gang follows Bison to a land of cut trees, where he has a sawmill. At this location, Clockwerk's claws are hidden, using them to cut down trees. The gang challenges him to a series of contests in which they cheat. Bison discovers this and flees to freedom. Bison later tells them that he came across the Clockwerk parts in the gang's lair and sold it all to Klaww gang leader Arpeggio, as well as forcing the judges to give him a score of ten during the competition under the threat line (which was why he always won). With Sly's help, Bentley defeats Bison in a brawl, where the area is covered with traps that Sly controls from Bentley. Murray manages to make a way out for the gang.
Through the air, Sly infiltrates the main airship where Clockwerk's parts are being reassembled, and finds that Neyla has been working directly for Arpeggio (a parrot). In front of Arpeggio, Sly discovers that his airship has been turned into a huge transmitter that is going to unleash a hypnotic light of hate on Paris (with its population that has been susceptible to hypnosis as a result of Dimitri's work), a huge wellspring of hate will be produced that Arpeggio will channel by being inside Clockwerk, causing him to become immortal. Suddenly, just before Arpeggio enters Clockwerk, Neyla pushes Arpeggio aside, entering him. She kills Arpeggio, and names herself Clock-La, and flies away. The gang begins to disable the aircraft's engines to weaken Clock-La. They then send a signal to Carmelita who has agreed to help, and arrives at a helicopter. They engage in a final firefight with Clock-La, which then crashes the main engine of the aircraft and wrecks the fortress and the takeover of the Northern Light battery, where Bentley and Murray are inside. Sly makes his way back to the battery after Northern Light collapses. Clock-La is then unable to move. Murray opens Clock-La's head, so Bentley can finish her off by planting bombs in her head and then removing the Hate Chip, the center of Clockwerk's power. As it exits the mouth, Clockwerk's beak falls and crushes Bentley's legs. Murray saves him, but Bentley is now paralysed and unable to walk. The gang makes a quick exit after Clockwerk's body explodes.
Carmelita arrives with her helicopter and puts the gang under arrest, but not before destroying the Hate Chip, causing Clockwerk's parts to be destroyed forever and killing Neyla for good. Sly turns himself in, in exchange for letting his friends go because of both Bentley's injuries and that they are in a position to make a quick getaway, to which Carmelita agrees. During the helicopter ride to the station, Sly and Carmelita begin to talk amiably, discussing their past adventures, as well as personal hobbies and tastes. The conversation ends abruptly when Carmelita suddenly realizes the flight has lasted more than two hours instead of just a few minutes. Carmelita goes to the front of the helicopter to inspect, only to discover that the helicopter is in autopilot mode, leaving enough time for Sly to parachute out. Carmelita then shouts at Sly from the helicopter, stating that she will eventually find him.
Development
Production and design
thumb|Dev Madan at Comic Con Oakland 2026
Sly 2: Band of Thieves was developed by the company responsible for the predecessor, Sucker Punch Productions. The Seattle-based developer's Brian Fleming and Elodie Hummel produced the project, Darren Rice credited as assistant producer. Programmers were Chris Zimmerman, Chris Bentzel, Dan Brakeley, Chris Heidorn, Steve Johnson, Bruce Oberg, Matthew Scott, and Sean Smith. Tenchu: Stealth Assassins (1998) was referenced for creating the stealth gameplay. Like all of Sucker Punch's previous games, such as the first Sly Cooper entry and Rocket: Robot on Wheels (1999), the target audience was all ages, with the upbeat nature for younger gamers and gameplay concepts and humour for older and hardcore players. For the scenarios, Fox wanted the player to feel like they were in a heist film, "like you're watching from the shadows, like you're empowered to do things and have no one know that you're doing them." One method of enhancing the gameplay was the incorporation of non-linear gameplay assets, such as the freedom to enter and complete areas in any order and variable paths for characters in missions. Explained Fox, this was so the player felt like they were in control of the whole experience instead of just the character, similar to Deus Ex (2000). Suzanne Kaufman was 3D animator, Andrew Woods character animator, and Karin Yamagiwa texture artist.
Usual at Sucker Punch, the visual-making process was the greenlighting of ideas from concept artists, then designers using it to figure out the geometry and placement of characters and objects in levels, then concept artists filling in the details; this was all before modeling, texturing, and lighting. What followed was drawings of the same levels with actual assets, such as decorations, bridges, columns, doors, roofs and the like. This concept meant camera views were figured out during concept drawing of the locations. Laurie Bauman produced the voice acting and wrote the dialog with the help of Carrie Palk, David Howe, and Wendi Willis, who voiced the "bad animals" in the game. Kevin Miller, Matt Olsen, and Chris Murphy reprise their roles as Sly Cooper, Murray and Bentley respectively, with newcomers Alisa Glidewell as Carmelita and Neyla, David Scully as Dimitri and Rajan, Gloria Manon as Contessa, Ross Douglas as Jean Bison, and Sam Mowry as Arpeggio. The game was released in North America on September 14, 2004, and in Europe and Australia on October 29, 2004. It was released in Japan by Sony Computer Entertainment on June 16, 2005 as .
The original PlayStation 2 version of the game was digitally re-released on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 on December 11, 2024, which consists of trophy support, save states, and rendering options.
Reception
Sly 2: Band of Thieves received "generally favorable" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. At the AIAS' 8th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, Sly 2 was awarded "Console Children's Game of the Year" (along with receiving nominations for outstanding achievement in "Animation", "Art Direction", and "Sound Design").
Jörg Luibl of 4Players enjoyed the game's "quiet, acrobatic elegance that is second to none" to other platform games that were generally more noisy in personality, such as the third Ratchet and Clank game. Sly 2: Band of Thieves is generally considered by critics to be the best Sly Cooper game, a successful expansion of the qualities of the first game, its most highlighted aspects being the inclusion of three playable characters with distinct abilities and the variety and captivity of the worlds.