God of War, The Last of Us, Gran Turismo, Uncharted, and other major Sony-owned AAA franchises have been the backbone of the PlayStation brand, as they have helped the platform holder maintain its position at the top of the video game industry. The thing that many often forget, though, is that Sony doesn’t just make AAA blockbusters. It owns the rights to a multitude of other, lesser-known franchises, most of which have sadly remained underutilized for several years. Fortunately, it appears this may soon change, judging by some comments from PlayStation co-CEO Herman Hulst.
Speaking in an interview with Famitsu, Hulst revealed that Sony was actively “looking at opportunities to leverage past IPs” and “introduce new types of games.” While this can just be interpreted as business speak by some, the wording of Hulst’s statements seems to suggest that PlayStation is actually interested in reviving its old franchises. This suggestion was recently corroborated by renowned insider Andy Robinson, who claimed that PlayStation was currently bringing back at least a couple of its classic, deep cut IPs. If all these rumors are indeed accurate, then Sony should look at the PlayStation Store to get an idea of what franchise revivals PlayStation fans truly want.
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Why PlayStation Fans Should Approach the Rumored IP Revivals with Caution
If history is anything to go by, fans should take recent rumors of Sony’s plans to revive dormant franchises with a grain of salt.
Some of the Best-Rated Games on the PS Store Are From a Legacy Sony Franchise
PlayStation Has Brought a Bunch of Classic PS2 Games to PS4/5, Including the Sly Cooper Trilogy
Although the modern PlayStation consoles don’t have native backwards compatibility like the Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S do, Sony has brought a lot of its classic games to modern PlayStation consoles through the PlayStation Plus Premium subscription service. Recently, the company has been adding a lot of PlayStation 2 games to its catalog, such as Tomb Raider Legend, Timesplitters: Future Perfect, and even Siren. Perhaps the most notable of these retro games that have been made available on PlayStation 4 and 5, though, is the Sly Cooper trilogy.
Sly Cooper, which was originally created by Ghost of Tsushima developer Sucker Punch Productions, is a stealth action-adventure franchise that tells the story of a group of anthropomorphic animals who travel around the world to carry out elaborate heists against dangerous criminal organizations. The first three entries in the series launched exclusively on the PlayStation 2, and were stuck on the console for ages until they finally made the jump to PS4/5 late last year. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, the first game in the series, was brought to current-gen platforms in June 2024, while Sly 2 and 3 were ported in mid-December.
Sly Cooper Being Highly-Rated on PSN Shows That There is an Audience for the Franchise
The original Sly Cooper games received widespread acclaim when they were initially released, and despite being more than 20 years old, the love for them still hasn’t died down. In fact, on the PlayStation Store, all three of the previously mentioned Sly Cooper titles have obtained near-perfect user scores. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus has a 4.93/5 global player rating, while Sly 2 and Sly 3 both have a score of 4.96/5. This makes the three games some of the highest-rated products that have ever been released on the PlayStation Store.
The fact that Sly Cooper has received this much praise from the PlayStation community shows that it would be the perfect candidate for a proper revival if Sony is truly looking to utilize its past IPs. As many will already know, there hasn’t been a new Sly Cooper game in ages. The last entry in the franchise, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, was released over 10 years ago, and there hasn’t been any indication, either from Sony or Sucker Punch, that the series will return. Even though a new Sly Cooper game probably won’t be released anytime soon, hopefully the franchise’s popularity on the PlayStation Store proves to Sony that there is an audience for it.
Sly Cooper
Sony’s Sly Cooper franchise began in 2002 with Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus and hasn’t had a new release since 2013’s Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. The series uniquely combines the platform and stealth genres.
The original PlayStation 2 trilogy was developed by Sucker Punch Productions, while Thieves in Time on PlayStation 3 was developed by Sanzaru Games.