The Vatican Museums

Lore & Background

The Vatican Museums house centuries of accumulated art and antiquity, a labyrinthine collection that has drawn the attention of the world's finest thieves. For the Cooper Gang, the challenge is not merely the security detail but the sheer density of the space: long colonnaded halls, tight staircases between floors, and open atriums where a single misstep puts Sly in the crosshairs of a dozen guards at once.

The level's design plays on contrast. The quiet, hushed reverence of the galleries—where visitors whisper and guards move in slow, predictable arcs—sits in sharp opposition to the frantic, acrobatic energy of Sly and his crew darting across pedestals, swinging from chandeliers, and popping out of hiding spots in a blink. The heist objective sits at the heart of the museum, guarded by a rotating patrol pattern that the player must learn and exploit.

Crazy Coconut's aerial gadgetry and Murray's brute-force takedowns find particular use here, as the vertical architecture of the museum—mezzanines, balconies, and the famous spiral staircases—rewards creative routing over the straightforward ground-level path.

In Their Own Story

The atrium was silent except for the soft shuffle of a single guard's boots on marble. Sly crouched behind a marble bust of a Roman senator, his red bandana pulled low, ears flat. Bentley's voice crackled through the comms, barely a whisper: "Three more minutes, Sly. The guard rotation hits the east corridor at—" A footstep. Then another. The guard was closer. Sly counted. One. Two. Three. On the fourth step, he rolled out from behind the bust, snatched the gilded frame from its pedestal in one fluid motion, and was gone before the guard turned. The only sound left in the atrium was the faint, almost apologetic creak of the frame's chain, still dangling from its hook.

Reader's Guide

The level opens in a long, vaulted entrance hall with a checkerboard marble floor, tall arched windows casting warm shafts of light across the walkway, and a series of marble columns that serve as natural cover points. Guards patrol in pairs along the central axis, their line-of-sight broken only by the columns and by clusters of visiting tourists that the player can use as distraction props.

Moving deeper, the architecture shifts to a series of interconnected galleries connected by narrow, spiraling staircases. Here the verticality opens up: Crazy Coconut can zip-line between upper balconies while Sly drops to the lower floor, and Murray can knock over a display case to create a temporary chokepoint. Wrenches are tucked behind pedestals, inside display cases that require a quick break-and-recover, and along the upper railings where a well-timed jump from a moving platform (a slow-rotating viewing platform in the central rotunda) is required.

The heist objective sits in a small, heavily guarded antechamber at the level's end. The final approach demands chaining two or three distractions in sequence to break the guard rotation, then a short, tense sprint to the target. A G-Wrench is hidden in a less-obvious spot—behind a false wall panel accessible only by knocking a specific decorative urn off its plinth.

The overall palette is warm gold, cream, and deep red, with the occasional cool blue from stained-glass windows breaking up the monotony. The atmosphere is hushed, reverent, and slightly claustrophobic in the tighter corridors.

Did You Know?

• Sly Cooper levels traditionally reward players for finding creative, non-linear routes through the environment rather than following the obvious path, and museum-style layouts with their branching corridors and vertical
• G-Wrenches, the franchise's global collectibles, are typically hidden in spots that require a different character's ability or a less obvious traversal trick, encouraging players to revisit levels with a different crew m
• The Cooper Gang's core four—Sly, Bentley, Murray, and Crazy Coconut—each have a distinct role in combat and traversal, and museum levels tend to emphasize Crazy Coconut's aerial mobility and Murray's heavy-hitting takedo
• Sly Cooper's stealth design philosophy, established by Sucker Punch Productions, prioritizes player agency: there is rarely a single 'correct' way to complete a heist, and the level is built to accommodate multiple valid