It's About Family in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time

PlayStation 3 is well-known for its robust catalog of exclusives, but as far as development stories are concerned revolving those exclusives, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time's might be the most interesting. Sanzaru Games, the studio taking the franchise over from Sucker Punch, began developing Sly 4 without Sony's permission. Yet, Sony was so impressed by what they saw that they commissioned Sanzaru to port the PS2 Sly Cooper games to PS3 while giving Sanzaru their blessing to continue working on what we now know as Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time.

Unfortunately, ever since hearing Sanzaru's fascinating story and seeing Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time in action at this year's E3 in June, all has been quiet. But today on the PlayStation Blog, more has finally been revealed about Sly's new adventure, which is primed to come exclusively to PlayStation 3 in 2012.

Glen Egan, President of Sanzaru Games, had plenty to say about the new content they're showing off. "When we played the old Sly Cooper games on the PS2, we loved the stories about the Cooper clan ancestors and their various thieving abilities," Egan explained. "Something that is really exciting and fun for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time is that you can not only travel back in time to meet these ancestors, but you will also have the ability to play as the Cooper Clan ancestors! As you proceed through the game each episode you encounter features a new time period with a new playable ancestor. Each new member of the Cooper clan has their own unique and powerful abilities that opens up a whole new range of game play in the huge environments."

Egan is ready to show-off one of these ancestors in particular, a ninja named Rioichi Cooper, who hails originally from the first Sly Cooper on PlayStation 2. His Leaping Dragon Technique will purportedly come in handy when he has to jump over gigantic gaps and chasms. He also happens to own a restaurant that Sly and his team hide-out in when there's a lull in the action.

Check out the new screens attached to see more of Rioichi Cooper, and then sound-off in the comments below about which characters from previous Sly games you'd like to see reintroduced in Sly 4.

• More PlayStation 3 News
• Latest PlayStation 3 News, Reviews, and Videos