Angkor Wat

Lore & Background

In the world of Sly Cooper, the temple known as Angkor Wat stands as a half-reclaimed ruin, its carved stone faces half-swallowed by lianas and moss. The temple's reflecting pools mirror the jungle sky, and the air hums with insects and the distant call of birds. It is a place of quiet grandeur, where ancient carvings depict forgotten deities and the architecture rises in tiered towers toward a canopy that filters the light into green-gold shafts.

The Coopers' involvement with the site is tied to a heist: a valuable artifact housed within the temple's inner sanctum has been targeted, and Sly's crew must thread through the outer courtyards, cross the water channels, and scale the carved galleries to reach their mark. Guards patrol the grounds in predictable loops, and the temple's layout—its narrow corridors, elevated walkways, and submerged passages—demands that the crew use the environment to their advantage, dropping into water to avoid sightlines or using the tiered architecture to gain height.

The level's tone shifts from the bright, open jungle exterior to the dimmer, more enclosed interior chambers, where the stone feels closer and the echoes of footsteps make stealth a genuine concern. It is a reminder that in the Sly Cooper world, even the most sacred-seeming places are just another job on the board.

In Their Own Story

The afternoon heat pressed down on the temple like a damp cloth. Bentley adjusted his glasses and muttered about the humidity ruining his schematics. Murray, waddling through a knee-deep channel, kept his eyes on the carved guardian statues lining the causeway, hoping none of them had a hidden tripwire.

Sly crouched on the upper gallery, one hand on a chipped stone railing, watching a guard's flashlight sweep the courtyard below. Three more passes. Four. On the fifth, the guard turned toward the eastern wall.

"Now," Bentley whispered, and the three of them dropped into the water in a single splash, sliding beneath the guard's line of sight and into the shadowed corridor that led inward, toward the artifact and the long way home.

Reader's Guide

The level opens in a wide jungle clearing where the temple's outer causeway stretches toward the main structure. Stone guardian statues flank the path, and the water in the channels is shallow enough to walk through but deep enough to slow Murray and hide the crew from ground-level guards. The aesthetic is warm and overgrown: sandstone in ochre and cream, heavy with green moss, with carved faces and lotus motifs on every wall.

The heist objective sits deep in the inner sanctum, requiring traversal through a series of tiered galleries. The first section is open and horizontal, with guards patrolling the causeway and a few optional Wrench's Bolts tucked behind pillars or on elevated ledges. The middle section introduces verticality: climbing carved pillars, crossing narrow stone bridges over deeper water, and using the temple's tiered rooflines to reach higher platforms. Water here acts as both a traversal tool and a concealment mechanic—dropping in resets guard attention.

The final stretch is dimmer and more enclosed, with tighter corridors and a few moving or crumbling platforms over a lower water channel. Collectibles are scattered in less obvious spots: behind a false wall panel, on a high ledge reachable only by a specific jump chain, or submerged in a pool at the end of a side passage. The overall flow moves from open and bright to narrow and shadowed, building tension as the crew closes in on the target.

Did You Know?

• The temple's water channels serve a dual purpose in gameplay: they slow the player's movement for Murray but let Sly and Bentley drop beneath guard sightlines for free stealth.
• The level's tiered stone architecture means the same courtyard can be approached from three different heights, and the correct route changes depending on which collectibles you still need.
• Guard patrol patterns in the temple sections are tied to the time of day implied by the lighting, with fewer guards active in the dimmer interior chambers than in the open exterior causeway.
• Murray's top-heavy waddle makes the narrow stone bridges and crumbling platforms in the inner sections a distinct challenge compared to Sly's more agile traversal.