Smoke Bomb

Lore & Background

In the world of Sly Cooper, the Smoke Bomb is the kind of gadget you grab off a workbench in the Burrow and never think twice about. It is small, unassuming, and tucked into a pouch alongside the grappling hook and the Smoke Screen. Bentley might tinker with the charge casing to make it last a beat longer; Murray might accidentally set one off during a heist rehearsal and spend the next ten minutes coughing; Coco would simply note in the mission log that it is 'non-negotiable for any op involving more than two guards.'

The device's design philosophy mirrors the Cooper crew's ethos: you do not need to be the strongest thief in the room, only the one the guards cannot find. A well-timed burst of smoke turns a corridor of armed sentries into a corridor of confused sentries, and in that two-second window of grey nothing, Sly is already three rooftops away, grinning, a gemstone clutched in his teeth.

Over the course of the series, the Smoke Bomb has been a constant. Whether Sly is dodging the Feral Family's henchmen, slipping past the Clumsy Crew's bumbling security, or evading the Clockwerk robots in Thieves in Time, the little canister in his belt is the one item he never leaves the Burrow without. It is not flashy. It does not explode with a satisfying *boom*. It simply makes the world go quiet and grey, and in that silence, the Cooper crew does what it has always done: walks out the front door with the goods.

In Their Own Story

The vault door hissed shut behind him, and the alarm began its slow, grinding wail. Sly counted three guards rotating the east corridor, two more at the service elevator, and a camera sweeping the lobby in a lazy arc. He had maybe eight seconds before the first pair of boots hit the stairwell.

He pulled the canister from his belt, gave it a half-turn to break the seal, and flicked it underhand into the center of the lobby. The hiss was barely louder than a sigh. Then the grey bloomed—thick, rolling, swallowing the chandelier's light into a soft, featureless fog.

Sly was already moving. Paws silent on marble. The guards' shouts came from everywhere and nowhere, muffled by the cloud. He pressed his back against the far wall, exhaled, and watched through a thin parting in the smoke as two helmets bumped together in confused frustration. He tipped an invisible hat, slung the gemstone pouch over his shoulder, and vanished up the fire escape into the night.

Reader's Guide

Function: The Smoke Bomb produces a dense cloud of smoke at the point of deployment. The cloud persists for a short duration, blocking the line of sight of nearby enemies and preventing them from tracking Sly's position. It does not deal damage; it is purely a concealment and misdirection tool.

Primary user: Sly Cooper. In entries where multiple playable characters are available (such as Sly 2 and Sly 3), the Smoke Bomb is typically tied to Sly's gadget loadout, though the exact availability can shift between titles.

How to obtain: In most entries the Smoke Bomb is available from very early in the game, either as a default gadget or unlocked within the first few levels. It is not a rare find; it is part of the baseline kit. In some titles it may be replenished at checkpoints or purchased from in-level vendors.

Upgrades and variants: Across later entries, the Smoke Bomb may see minor tweaks—slightly longer cloud duration, a marginally larger radius, or the ability to deploy it mid-grapple or mid-dash. The core function remains the same. In Thieves in Time, the gadget is available alongside the time-based mechanics, and in Lad Thieves it fits into the updated gadget system.

Practical tips: Deploy the Smoke Bomb when an enemy is mid-turn or mid-patrol rather than when they are already looking at you. Pair it with a quick wall-run or grapple to exit the cloud before it dissipates. In multi-enemy rooms, one bomb rarely covers everyone; you may need two in sequence. It is also effective for breaking a chase if you deploy it directly in front of a pursuing guard.

Did You Know?

• The Smoke Bomb is a concealment tool, not a weapon—it never deals damage to enemies in any entry in the series.
• Sucker Punch Productions designed the gadget to reinforce the series' core loop of stealth and misdirection over direct confrontation.
• The Smoke Bomb appears as a standard, early-available gadget across multiple mainline titles, making it one of the most consistently present items in the franchise.
• In cooperative or multi-character sections of later games, the Smoke Bomb can be used to create a shared window of concealment for the entire crew.