Sly Cooper Codexery

Cel-shaded art style

Toon-shading that made a stealth game look like a film noir cartoon.

The Sly Cooper games are drawn with cel shading. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (2002) used a variation of it to create a film noir feel while still looking like a hand-drawn animated film, and critics praised it as a technical achievement.

Quick Facts

Introduced in
Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (2002)
Developer
Sucker Punch Productions

Lore & Background

Brian Fleming of Sucker Punch called the style "toon-shading", comparing the game's detailed backgrounds and cel-shaded foregrounds to animated films.

Reader's Guide

The planned film adaptation moved away from the look: its makers said they loved the cel-shaded games but chose contemporary CG for the big screen.

GameSpot singled out the game's sense of style, from its animation to its cel-shaded polygons. When Sly 2: Band of Thieves followed in 2004, critics again praised its graphics and cel-shaded art style.

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