Last time, we did Covid-19 a favor by destroying a mask so completely that not a single trace of its existence remains. And as a result, the Australian Outback is set to improve, freeing up Murray’s Guru to become the 4th member of the Cooper Gang.
But we need more help than that if we’re going to break into the Cooper vault. So it’s off to Holland to participate in an aerial dogfighting contest to recruit an RC specialist whose expertise exceeds even Bentley’s.
The fascinating aspect of this section of the game is that where we didn’t have an overarching villain in the Outback, here in Holland we have an antagonist who isn’t truly a villain. He’s just a wealthy dogfighting champion who wants to have a fair match. The reason his guards are out on patrol is simply to discourage the competitors from sabotaging each other. It doesn’t work, but he’s still putting in an effort to stop cheaters like us.
Arguably, we’re the villains because we’re actively sabotaging the event just so that we can recruit a member of his team to our gang. Bentley in particular starts to grow especially devious in this episode, devising plans to generate animosity among other teams and stealing the competition roster to give an unfair advantage to our single (admittedly) underdog airplane pilot.
Even if the game doesn’t dwell on it, or bring it up, this setup is far more morally gray than we typically see in Sly Cooper. As he’s stealing, it’s usually from the kind of people who “deserve it” as a form of karmic justice, and that’s not the case here.
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