The Emerald (Thieves in Time)

Lore & Background

In the world of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, the Clockwork has begun siphoning moments from the past, present, and future, destabilizing the flow of history itself. The Emerald sits at the heart of one such disruption: a jewel whose presence in the wrong era creates a paradox the Clockwork intends to exploit. Sly and the crew must navigate the altered environment, contend with the Clockwork's mechanical enforcers, and extract the gem before the timeline fractures further.

The heist reflects the game's broader theme of time as both obstacle and ally. The crew's Time Machine allows them to shift between eras mid-mission, turning a single location into a layered puzzle where past and future versions of the same space interact. The Emerald itself is not merely a score to collect; its removal or placement ripples outward, altering the layout and enemy placement in real time.

For the Cooper crew, the mission is a reminder of what makes them thieves rather than mere adventurers: precision, coordination, and the willingness to walk into a situation fully knowing the rules will shift beneath their feet before they've finished the job.

In Their Own Story

The vault hummed with a frequency Bentley could feel in his teeth. Sly crouched on a gargoyle's ledge, the emerald's green glow painting the rain-slicked stone in veins of light. Somewhere below, the Clockwork's automaton guards clicked through their patrol in a rhythm that was almost—almost—musical.

"Murray," Sly whispered into the comms. "You're up."

A low, rumbling growl answered. The bear dropped from the upper gallery like a boulder given purpose, crashing through the glass partition and scattering the guards' attention. Caracara shrieked from the rafters, raking talons across a second wave. Bentley's gadget whirred, a net of temporal energy latching the emerald's pedestal in place so it wouldn't phase out of the current era.

Sly swung in, one clean grab, the gem cold and impossibly heavy in his gloved hand. The vault shuddered. The timeline groaned like a ship's hull.

"Time to go," he said. And they did.

Reader's Guide

Target: The Emerald, secured in a guarded vault whose layout shifts as the timeline is disturbed. The heist requires the full crew: Sly for traversal and the final grab, Bentley for gadget-based disruption and temporal anchoring, Murray for heavy confrontation with the Clockwork's mechanical guards, and Caracara for aerial takedowns and reaching elevated switch points.

Obstacles include patrolling automaton enemies, environmental hazards that change when the era shifts, and a time-sensitive window in which the emerald must be extracted before the vault's timeline lock resets. The Clockwork's presence in the area means that failing a stealth check can trigger a broader alarm that alters enemy density.

The heist sits in the mid-arc of the campaign, after the crew has established their Time Machine capabilities but before the final confrontation. It serves as a proving ground for the era-shifting mechanic: players learn to use temporal displacement not just as a traversal tool but as a puzzle key.

Alternate approaches: A fully stealth run is possible by using Caracara to disable upper-level sentries and Murray to quietly subdue ground guards, minimizing the timeline disturbance. A more aggressive route using Bentley's gadgets to overload the vault's security grid is faster but triggers additional enemy waves. Exploring the vault's adjacent chambers reveals collectible items and a hidden shortcut that bypasses the final guard cluster entirely—rewarding players who take the time to look beyond the main objective.

Did You Know?

• Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time was developed by Sucker Punch Productions, the same studio behind the earlier Sly Cooper titles and the inFAMOUS series.
• The game's time-travel premise allows the crew to shift between eras mid-mission, a mechanic that distinguishes it from the more linear heist structure of earlier entries.
• Caracara, the puma, joined the crew in Thieves in Time as a fourth playable member, adding aerial combat options not available in previous games.
• The Clockwork, the game's antagonist, is a mechanical entity whose goal of stealing time drives the entire campaign narrative.