Sly Cooper: Thieves In Time Has Shot Straight To The Top Of Our Most Wanted List.

Regular readers will know we're big proponents of the Sly Cooper franchise, so it's personally very exciting for us to see the franchise make a return on PS3.

Despite Sucker Punch not being at the helm, we have every faith in Sanzaru Games. During the game's showcase, Sanzaru president Glen Egan explained that the developer pitched the concept of a new Sly Cooper to Sony back when they realised Sucker Punch wouldn't have time to make the game. The project got greenlit, and after working on the Sly Collection for PlayStation 3 — here we are.

It looks like Sanzaru's sticking pretty closely to the model that's made Sly Cooper such a successful franchise in the past. The debut footage shows Sly engrossed in a battle with one of the franchise's trademark villains, hopping between platforms and tight-ropes in order to avoid the foe's projectile attacks.

Glen explained that Sanzaru wanted to take a step-back towards the layered boss-fights of the original Sly game, and the set-pieces shown in the trailer certainly look epic. The game will make interesting use of costumes, which were used in the original game as disguises. In Thieves In Time however, costumes will be integral to the combat. One example demonstrated in the gameplay footage shows Sly reflecting attacks using a shield as part of a Roman warrior costume. There's also a Metroid-vania aspect to the costumes, with the outfits opening up new areas in locations you've already visited. We assume there'll be some bottle collecting involved too.

Sly, Bentley and Murray will all return as playable characters according to Glen, with more announcements to follow in the coming months. All three protagonists will be playable.

Based on the evidence of this gameplay demo, we're super excited for Thieves In Time. The level destruction effects look great. It certainly looks like a more "epic" evolution of the Sly Cooper games of old, which is exactly what we want thank you very much. One nit-pick though, Sly's costume looks a little dark in these videos. Brighten it up please, Sanzaru.

Check out the gameplay footage and inteview with Glen Egan after the jump.