New Ghost of Yotei Update Adds the Best Easter Eggs Yet From Sucker Punch’s Classic PS2 Series
Developer Sucker Punch Productions has released a few updates for Ghost of Yotei in order to prepare the open-world game for its Echoes of Sekigahara DLC, which is slated for October 1st. Most of the patch revolves around the imminent expansion, but a few of the free features are currently available for everyone. And some of these features come in the form of Easter eggs that call back to Sly Cooper, one of Sucker Punch’s most famous franchises.
As spotted by various users on social media, players have figured out that the game will react if they don certain pieces of gear referencing Sly. If players put on the Mercenary Attire with the Sly Bandit color dye, the Sly Thief Mask, and the Tanuki’s Mischief weapon kit for the Wolf Blade and Dual Katana, Yotei will acknowledge the attire by fading away the menu and playing “Sly Samurai” from the Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time soundtrack.
The Ghost of Yotei update added some new easter eggs centered around the Sly Cooper costume!
— Radec (@realradec) September 23, 2026
When equipping the full set, music from the Thieves in Time's Japan level plays and Atsu quotes a line from Sly 2
Also Sly's sneaking sound effect now plays when crouch walking! pic.twitter.com/ejcGE4c6JF
Atsu then says, “I don’t know what’s in my future. But I won’t let it be a repeat of my past.” It’s not a reference to Thieves in Time, but a reference to a line from Sly 2: Band of Thieves that Sly says at the end of the intro animatic that follows the tutorial level.
But the references don’t stop there. Crouch walking with this getup will play the bassline that plays in the Sly games when a character is sneaking behind a guard. However, instead of the notes seemingly stemming from a bass guitar, the notes are played with a shamisen, the traditional Japanese, guitar-like instrument players can strum on in the game. Essentially, it adapts a core Sly trope into something more fitting for a game that takes place in 17th-century Japan.
Sucker Punch Has Long Paid Respects to the Sly Cooper Franchise
While Echoes of Sekigahara will have new gear, this Sly gear has already been in the game; it’s just the effects that are new. Ghost of Tsushima contained similar blue, raccoon-themed cosmetics (and had a trophy that revolved around putting them on), and its Iki Island DLC had a silly, semi-hidden mural dedicated to the three core members of the Cooper Gang. The Infamous games — the superhero series Sucker Punch tackled between the Sly and Ghost franchises — have nods to the raccoon thief that take the form of a backpack patch, neon sign, news ticker, painting, theater sign, and book. So even though the team hasn’t touched the series in over two full decades, it still appears to have quite a reverence for it.
It didn’t develop Thieves in Time, which was headed by the recently closed Sanzaru Games (making it quite surprising Yotei‘s Easter egg track is from that entry). That was the final installment in the series, even though it left off in a way that was quite open for further exploration. According to an interview years later, creative director Matt Kramer said this loose finale was meant to be addressed in DLC that PlayStation canceled. Sales figures for Thieves in Time were never released, but it’s likely it didn’t sell to PlayStation’s expectations.
As such, the series remains locked in a vault. Rumors ran rampant in 2022 that a new installment was on the way, which Sucker Punch outright denied. The Sly Cooper movie that was announced in 2014 and the TV series that was announced in 2017 were both shelved, too. PlayStation is reportedly working on bringing back old franchises, but it remains to be seen if that is true and if Sly Cooper would be included in that initiative. As it is now, he is just a reference in games like Astro Bot and Ghost of Yotei.
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