The Temple of Karnak

Lore & Background

The Temple of Karnak sits in a stretch of desert where the wind has long since buried half the original structures, leaving only the grander halls and inner sanctums exposed. In the world of the Sly Cooper series, it serves as the repository for a prized artifact that has drawn the attention of the Thieves' Guild and, consequently, Sly and his crew. The temple's layout—winding corridors, elevated catwalks, and a central vault chamber—makes it an ideal stage for the kind of multi-stage infiltration the series is built around.

Guards patrol the outer and middle sections in predictable loops, while the inner sanctum introduces tighter spaces and more vertical traversal. The environment itself becomes an obstacle: crumbling sandstone, swinging chains, and narrow ledges over chasms force Sly to think in three dimensions rather than simply running a straight line to the target.

As with other Sly Cooper heists, the temple is layered with optional content. Wrench's Wrenches are tucked into hard-to-reach alcoves and behind destructible crates; Murray's Eggs sit in the most awkward, low-ceilinged pockets where the large pig must squeeze through; and Bandit Crates hide in the background geometry, rewarding players who explore every shadowed niche of the sandstone architecture.

In Their Own Story

The wind off the dunes carried grit into the temple's open colonnade, scratching faintly against the hieroglyphs. Sly crouched on a broken column cap, his mask catching the amber glow of a torch three corridors deep. Bentley's voice crackled in his ear: "Sly, the guard rotation shifts in forty seconds. You've got a window."

He dropped. Sandstone crunched under his paws. A guard's lantern swept the corridor—Sly pressed flat against the wall, counting the seconds between the torch's arc. Three. Two. One. The light passed. He was already moving, vaulting a fallen lintel, threading between columns where the shadows pooled thick and cool. Somewhere deeper, the artifact waited behind glass and lock and the particular arrogance of a vault that assumed nothing would ever get inside.

Murray grunted from a side passage, his bulk wedged between two pillars. "Sly. I. Am. Stuck."

"Hold on, Murray. I'll be right back."

He wasn't. He was already three ledges up, heading for the vault.

Reader's Guide

The Temple of Karnak opens in a broad colonnaded courtyard where the sandstone columns rise in pairs, their capitals carved with lotus motifs. Torches in iron brackets cast long, swaying shadows across the floor. The first stretch is a gentle introduction: short jumps between column bases, a guard walking a simple back-and-forth loop, and a Bandit Crate wedged behind a broken pillar.

The corridor narrows as you move inward. The ceiling lowers, the walls tighten, and hieroglyphic panels replace the open sky. Here the platforming becomes vertical—narrow ledges carved into the walls, a series of small stone blocks requiring precise jumps, and a section where a slow-rotating sandstone disc serves as a moving platform over a gap. A Wrench's Wrench is tucked in the recess above the disc's pivot point, reachable only by timing the rotation.

The middle section opens into a larger hall with a central dais. Guards increase to two, and their patrol paths cross, requiring Sly to time his movement between their arcs. Murray's Eggs are hidden in the low-ceilinged side alcoves of this hall—small, cramped pockets where the pig must navigate carefully. A second Bandit Crate sits on a high shelf, accessible via a chain that swings in a wide arc.

The final stretch leads to the vault: a circular chamber with a glass case at its center, the artifact glowing under a focused light. Two guards stand watch. The escape route back through the temple introduces a crumbling-floor segment where tiles give way underfoot, and a final sprint through the colonnade as the alarm triggers. The level rewards exploration—every wall panel, every shadowed niche, every broken column holds the possibility of a hidden collectible.

Did You Know?

• Sly Cooper levels consistently layer three types of collectibles—Wrench's Wrenches, Murray's Eggs, and Bandit Crates—into their environments, and the Temple of Karnak follows this pattern, hiding all three types within i
• The series' 3D platforming design means that even a linear corridor like a temple hallway is played in three dimensions, with ledges, overhead paths, and vertical shortcuts that reward spatial awareness over speed.
• Murray the pig, despite his size, is specifically tasked with collecting Eggs in tight, low-ceilinged spaces throughout the franchise, making cramped temple alcoves a signature challenge for the large crew member.
• Sucker Punch Productions designed the Sly Cooper levels so that the heist objective and the collectible hunting operate on separate reward tracks—a player can complete the theft and still spend significant time exploring