There was a time in my life, that I like to pretend wasn’t 13 or so years ago, where Sanzaru games was damn near the most important company in the world to me. They'd had just developed the excellent Sly Cooper HD collection, a game that I had played a metric ton of at the time in some real "Remember when I was a kid?" nostalgia. In that collection it was revealed that they were making a fourth Sly Cooper game, at that point only really known on screen as “Sly 4 ?(The question mark was prominent). We’d later learn that the collection of Sly ports was something of a tryout for them after they’d pitched Sony on a Sly 4 to begin with, but just seeing the very early trailer (that was obviously just a four or second clip over top of some completed level geometry) was massive for me. So the news recently that they’ve been shut down sucks. Of course it sucks on numerous levels, people have lost their jobs, games have likely been canned, and potential for future projects has just vanished in the aether.
It’s hard to express in a way that makes much sense but when the Sly Cooper HD collection dropped, 18-year-old me felt extremely vindicated in my love of the franchise. It’s hilarious to think of how short the gap between them and Thieves In time actually was in retrospect, but the original three Sly Cooper games felt like gargantuan markers in my love of video games. It had felt like it’d been a lifetime since we had gotten a Sly Cooper game (in actuality it was about 6 years, which these days is nothing in waiting for a sequel), so I was over the moon to have three of my nostalgic childhood favorites back in my hands and looking better than ever.
When I later found out that the game contained a secret trailer for Sly 4, I lost my mind. It’s all I would talk about for weeks. I’d post about it anywhere people would listen. I'm sure I was deeply annoying, but I didn’t notice or care because I was 18. Back in these days, I was an avid poster on the unhinged Polygon forums (yes, Polygon had forums. In fact I was a mod, so you have to believe me about the unhinged part). I’m 100% sure most of my posting history at the time was just telling people Sly 4 existed. It felt like a far-off dream of mine had been granted, and I was finally being given everything I wanted.
This was, of course, all thanks to Sanzaru Games. As I said, we didn’t really know it at the time, but now it’s fairly common knowledge that Sly 4 was the result of them making an internal pitch to Sony, being hired for the remasters, and getting the green light to make the fourth game off the quality job they did on them. Hell, they did such a quality job, and they sold so well, that they essentially spawned an entire sub-genre of the HD remaster in the 7th gen of consoles. Sony’s tended to be the best examples. Both the Jak and Ratchet trilogy remasters were of a similar high quality.
I know Sly 4 itself is seen as a…,contentious, spot in the Sly Cooper fandom but this post isn't really about that. Regardless of how you feel about the final quality of the game, this post exists in appreciation of all the people that worked so hard on it. There simply wasn't going to be another Sly Cooper game before they made that pitch. There probably wouldn't even have been the HD collection to begin with. No matter how you feel about the original game they made, Sanzaru brought more people to Sly Cooper, and I personally feel they did a good job with it. They deserve the laurels just based on that, and I'm going to miss them.
So here’s to you, Sanzaru. I’m sorry that this happened, and frankly, I’m sorry I haven’t played many of your games post-Sly 4 (which I personally quite liked!). We’ll always have the memories though, so thanks again.
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