PS Vita/PS3 Cross-play Brings New Features To Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time

Hello from Germany! I just wanted to write a quick blog post to talk about the cool stuff we are showing off at Gamescom this year for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.

First and foremost, we’d like to introduce you to a new Cooper ancestor, Salim Al Kupar. You’ll meet Salim as Sly travels back in time to the enchanted world of ancient Arabia – a land of magic genies, flying carpets and lost treasures. Sly quickly discovers that Salim is nearing retirement and looking forward to taking a little break from thievery; however, recent events have put an end to those plans! Now Sly and the gang will need to goad the slightly recalcitrant Salim back into action as they work together to restore his legacy.

We’re also giving you a look at a brand new mission in Arabia so you can see Salim in action. We find him on a quest to free one of the members of his band of thieves from a strange imprisonment, and to do so he must use his signature ability called the Cobra Climb – this allows him to rapidly ascend vertical ropes, chains or poles to quickly evade an attack. This comes in very handy as he makes his way through this snake-infested rug shop.

Something else that Salim puts to very good use in this mission is his own personal flying carpet! While Sly has the paraglider, Salim gets his own exclusive flying technique. The magic carpet gives Salim the ability to glide his way across gaps and evade his enemies with ease and Arabian style.

We are also showing off some new unique cross-play features for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time that will utilise both the PlayStation 3 and the PS Vita versions of the game. We’ve already talked about the cross-save feature that will let you use cloud saving to transfer your game from one device to the other. Here at Gamescom, we’re showcasing some pretty cool Augmented Reality features using the PS Vita to help you collect some valuable items as you play through the PS3 version of the game.

While playing Sly Cooper on the PS3 you’ll need to recruit an assistant in your quest for collectables, armed with a PlayStation Vita and the PS Vita version of the title. Following true Sly tradition, Thieves in Time is absolutely packed with stuff for players to collect as they tear their way across space and time, from clue bottles to treasure challenges, Sly masks to costumes; but sometimes these items can be quite difficult to locate. You now have a secret weapon! Using the PS Vita as a set of X-ray goggles, you can look into Sly’s universe from the PS Vita to help track them down. Simply point the PS Vita at the TV screen and press the button to lock onto the image and the X-ray overlay will pop up and highlight all of the hidden treasures in orange throughout the world. The PS Vita player simply taps on the front touch screen to display a pointer in the PS3 gameplay that will show you where to look for the hidden collectables.

You can also use Augmented Reality to help collect ancient hidden art treasures to earn even more loot as you play through the game. There are dozens of beautiful tapestries, paintings, mosaics and other ancient artworks scattered through the game. You can use the Vita to snap photographs of these as a way to “collect” them to earn more money. Just point the Vita at the TV to aim, press the button to take the photo and bingo – Sly collects the loot!

When we started developing Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time for the Vita, we were looking to create these kinds of new and engaging ways to have the two PlayStation systems interact with another, but you would essentially need both versions of the game to truly experience the entire Thieves in Time adventure. Which is why we’re really excited about the promotional pricing announcement for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time that Sony made this week at their press conference. For all of you that buy the PS3 version of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time (through traditional retailers or via the PlayStation Network), you will be able to download the PS Vita version of Thieves in Time from the PS Network at no additional cost. That’s a pretty awesome deal!

We’ll have lots more to come on the Sly Cooper front as we head toward our March 2013 release date. Even though Sly officially launches early next year, we are also still hard at work to make sure that everyone will still get a chance to play in the Sly Cooper universe this Autumn – stay tuned for more news on that very soon!

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