The Great Clock (Sly 3)

Lore & Background

The clock in question is one of the city's most iconic landmarks, a monument to precision and public order. Its inner workings are a cathedral of brass and steel: enormous drive gears the size of houses, pendulums swinging on chains thick as tree trunks, and a forest of escapement levers that click and ratchet in perpetual motion. To the untrained eye it is a marvel of engineering; to the Cooper Gang it is a locked vault with a schedule.

The target hidden within the mechanism is a prize the Rival Thieves stashed there precisely because the clock's constant motion makes it nearly impossible to case from the outside. No guard post, no security detail—just the relentless, grinding machinery itself. The Thieves counted on the gears to do their guarding for them. They forgot that a raccoon, a moose, a bat, and a pelican do not think in straight lines.

In the broader narrative of Sly 3, the Great Clock heist is part of the Gang's ongoing campaign to recover stolen valuables from the Rival Thieves' network. Each recovered item chips away at the Thieves' leverage and brings the Coon crew closer to dismantling their operation. The clock, for all its grandeur, is simply another node in that network—a place where a rival crew stashed a prize and assumed no one would bother climbing inside a working mechanism.

In Their Own Story

The pendulum swung. Sly held his breath on the edge of a gear tooth, one paw gripping the brass, the other extended toward the next platform. Below, the escapement clicked in its eternal rhythm—tick, tock, tick, tock—and each click was a window of stillness, a half-second where the world stopped moving long enough to jump.

"Sly, you've got maybe two ticks before that gear shifts," Bentley called from the safety of a fixed platform, his tail flicking nervously.

"Two ticks is plenty," Sly muttered, and he was gone—leaping, banking off a swinging pendulum, landing on the back of a drive gear that was slowly, inexorably rotating. The whole floor tilted. Murray, below, was running in a circle on a rotating platform, trying to keep his footing. Caracota was already three levels up, her wings folded, riding the updraft from a vent in the clock face.

The target glinted in the center of the main wheel, a small jewel set into the hub like a pupil in a mechanical eye. Sly had to time his grab to the exact moment the wheel's rotation brought it to his reach. One tick late and he'd be flung into the gears. One tick early and he'd miss entirely.

He waited. The pendulum swung. He jumped.

Got it.

Reader's Guide

Target: A valuable item (gem or component) stashed at the heart of the main clock mechanism, deep in the tower's interior. The item is the level's primary objective and sits at the apex of the vertical route.

Obstacles: The level is built around the clock's own machinery. Large drive gears rotate on fixed axes, creating moving platforms that shift under your feet. A central pendulum swings on a long arc, serving as both a hazard and a launch pad. Escapement levers click in and out of position on a set rhythm, opening and closing narrow passages. The vertical layout means a missed jump often drops you several platforms back.

Approach: The level rewards reading the clock's rhythm before you commit to a jump. Watch a gear complete one full rotation to learn its speed. Time your pendulum-rides to the apex of the swing for maximum distance. Murray's heavier weight can be useful on certain platforms where lighter characters bounce; Caracota's flight lets her shortcut vertical sections entirely.

Hidden objectives: Gem collectibles are tucked into the clockwork—on the backs of gear teeth, inside the escapement housing, and along the pendulum's chain. A Rival Thief or Wanted enemy typically guards the upper sections. Exploring the clock face from the outside (if accessible) may reveal a shortcut into the upper mechanism, bypassing some of the lower gear gauntlet.

What makes it memorable: The entire level is a single vertical column of moving parts. There is no horizontal backtracking—every mistake costs vertical progress. The constant ticking creates a natural rhythm that, once internalized, turns the level from a gauntlet into a dance.

Did You Know?

• Sly Cooper 3: Honor Among Thieves was developed by Sucker Punch Productions, the same studio behind the original two Sly Cooper titles, marking the third entry in the franchise.
• Caracota, the pelican, joins the Cooper Gang in Sly 3 as a new playable character, adding a flight-based traversal option to levels like The Great Clock where vertical shortcuts are available.
• Each heist level in Sly 3 contains a set of collectible gems hidden throughout the environment, encouraging players to explore every nook of the clockwork rather than simply following the main path to the target.
• The Rival Thieves serve as the primary antagonists in Sly 3, and their stashed valuables across various locations form the core mission structure of the game.