Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus is a stealth-platformer developed by Sucker Punch Productions and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. Released in 2002 for the PlayStation 2, the game follows Sly Cooper, a skilled raccoon thief, as he and his gang attempt to recover the Thievius Raccoonus, a book containing the secrets of his family's thieving legacy. The gameplay combines stealth, platforming, puzzle-solving, and light combat, and is noted for its cel-shaded visuals and humorous narrative. This game is divided into five worlds, each themed around a particular part of the world and the villain headquartered there. Most worlds are structured as a central hub with entrances to numerous individual levels. Each of the levels has a primary goals which earns the player a key. You must collect all the keys in the world to fight the world's boss. Many of the levels have a platformer structure. The objective of these worlds is to reach the location of the key. There are substantial stealth elements here as the player must dodge searchlights and trips lasers which set off alarms and avoid alerting guards. In addition to the main objective, there are clue bottles to find. Finding all the clues in a level allows you to open a safe with a page from the Thievius Raccoonus which grants a new ability of some sort. After getting this, there is also a master thief sprint where the player must get from the start of a level to the exit within a time limit.

Sly Cooper comes from a long line of master thieves (the Cooper Clan) who only steal from other criminals, thus making them vigilantes. The Cooper family's heirloom, an ancient book by the name The Thievius Raccoonus, records all the secret moves and techniques from every member in the clan. On his 8th birthday, Sly was supposed to inherit the book and learn all of his family's ancient secrets which was supposed to help him become a master thief, however, a group of thugs by the name "The Fiendish Five" (led by Clockwerk, who is the arch-nemesis of the family clan) attack the Cooper household and kills Sly's parents and stole all of the pages from the Thievius Raccoonus. After that, the ruthless gang go their separate ways to commit dastardly crimes around the world. Sly is sent to an orphanage where he meets and teams up and forms a gang with two guys who become his lifelong best friends, Bentley, a technician, inventor and a talented mathematical hacker with encyclopedic knowledge who plays the role as the brains of the gang, and Murray, a huge husky cowardly guy with a ginormous appetite who plays the role as the brawns and the getaway driver of the gang. The three leave the orphanage together at age 16 to start their lives becoming international vigilante criminals together, naming themselves "The Cooper Gang". Sly swears one day to avenge his family and track down the Fiendish Five and steal back the Thievius Raccoonus. Two years later, the Cooper Gang head to Paris, France, to infiltrate Itnerpol (a police headquarters) in order to find the secret police file which stores details and information about the Fiendish Five but during the heist they are ambushed by Inspector Carmelita Fox (towards whom Sly develops a romantic attraction), a police officer who is affiliated with Interpol and is after the Cooper Gang. The gang manage to steal the police file and successfully escapes from her and the rest of the cops. With the secret police file finally in their hands, the Cooper Gang manage to track down the Fiendish Five.