Bugs:Sly 2: Band of Thieves

This page details bugs of Sly 2: Band of Thieves.

This page or section needs more images. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough pictures. Please fix this.

Sly 2 has numerous minor/graphical glitches, many of which were documented as early as 2008 in this Neoseeker guide (which also includes a few major oversignts and softlocks). Some more glitches, including those which require cheat codes, are documented on the Sly Cooper wiki.

This page documents some particularly notable and more recently discovered bugs in the game.

Jobless Devmap

Jobless devmap is the colloquial name for a glitched state where no job is active, but most job-specific objects and triggers in the map are active. It is caused by forcing a level reload during another level load/transition. The easiest way to activate it is to use the level reload cheat while dying or during a map transition.

Interacting with objects in this state may lead to unusual behavior, game crashes, or nothing happening. It is used in the any% w/ cheats speedrun category to sequence break and access certain areas early.

Collision Issues

Table Clipping

As Sly, press and hold square to perform a charge attack while near a crawl space (table or air vent). At the same time, press circle repeatedly to clip through its geometry. The name comes from its use in speedruns to clip through the tables in Breaking and Entering.

Paraglider Clipping

In only the Japanese version (and the PS3 remasters, which are based on that version), paragliding into tight corners will sometimes make you clip through the wall, launch you very far away, or crash the game.

Rollbacks

Due to a developer oversight, some checkpoint triggers for certain jobs remain active even after the job is completed. Triggering these checkpoints causes a "rollback", which resets your progress in the episode to that point. This affects available jobs and alters your percent completion on the save file.

These were patched in the Japanese version of the game, and subsequently the PS3 remaster which is based on that version. They are still present in non-Japanese versions of the the PS4/PS5 release (which is an emulation of the PS2 version).

Spice Grinder Destruction

If you die in the Spice Grinder room in Episode 3, your progress in the episode will be rolled back to the start of the Spice Grinder Destruction job.

Laser Redirection

After completing Episode 7, if you re-enter the sawmill interior and climb up the ladder to the area with lasers, your progress will be rolled back to the start of the Laser Redirection job. Once you hear Jean Bison's voice over the intercom, the glitch has activated. To confirm, open the binoc-u-com and see the job name in the bottom right.

Softlocks

Taking certain actions may cause game progression to halt, blocking any further progress. The only way to recover is to take advantage of glitches, cheat codes, or mods to rollback your progress.

Printing Press Room

To do: Document how to trigger this glitch. I think it is related to saving + quitting while in the printing press room.

It is possible to get stuck in the printing press room's air vent in Episode 1, unable to progress because because the cutscene for the recon job doesn't play, and there is no way to leave the vent without completing that job.

Canada Games

If you save and quit during Operation: Canada Games in Episode 7, there is a chance that the story will not progress and you will get stuck. It is possible to recover from this glitch by intentionally triggering the Laser Redirection glitch to rollback your progress to earlier in the episode.