The face of evil: El Jefe, one of the villains in 'Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time'

Kicking off a high-profile year for video games, it’s Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time‘s turn to show what they’ve got. A new viral marketing website has popped up today, and while no official release date has yet been revealed, a full-out animated cutscene straight from the game has, with many speculating that the site is how we’ll be graced with the news of when the game will hit shelves.

The website is called DoYouKnowSly.com, and is simply a desk filled with trinkets of Sly Cooper future, and some of the past. Judging by the layout, we have showings of Paris, which means the next adventure could be headed that way, a time machine, which is the basis for the gang’s next mission, and even a pirate boat among other things.

Now, if you click the cigar in the lower left hand corner, you will be asked to insert a code. If you insert “IGPU79″, a full animated cutscene pops up for the only revealed villain so far: the evil tiger El Jefe. This is our first look at the new animation style, which is crisp, seems to move better than the old animated cutscenes of PS2 past, and also features that classic Sly Cooper voiceover from actor Kevin Miller.

As for the rest, we don’t really know what else the site has in store. This could be an excellent viral marketing model in which Sony and Sanzaru can reveal the cover art of the game, the release date, and more videos from the upcoming sequel.

Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time wil lbe released sometime this year.

What do you think of the marketing tie-in/animated cutscene? Let us know in the comments below!