Raven Software was first founded 30 years ago by brothers Brian and Steve Raffel, with the studio making a name for itself with first-person shooters and fantasy RPGs. Activision acquired Raven Software in the late 90s, and the studio has been under the Activision umbrella ever since, developing a wide-range of original IP as well as licensed titles.
For the past decade, Raven Software has been relegated to a support studio, mainly assisting with the development of the Call of Duty franchise. However, Raven is the lead studio on the upcoming Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War campaign, marking the studio’s most significant development effort since 2010’s Singularity.
With Raven Software being thrust back into the spotlight, here are the studio’s best games since its inception in 1990.
Raven Software’s debut game was 1992’s Black Crypt, a first-person RPG that earned decent reviews at the time of its release. However, ShadowCaster in 1993 was even better-received by the gaming community of the time, earning strong reviews from PC Gamer UK, PC Format, and more. Praise was given to its impressive (for the time) graphics, as well as its story and atmosphere. ShadowCaster would go on to win various rewards and rank on “Best Of” lists for the year, making it one of the strongest games of Raven Software’s early days.
id Software’s Quake was hugely influential for PC games in the mid- to late-90s, with many titles utilizing the Quake engine to great effect. One of the more critically-acclaimed Quake engine games was Hexen 2 from Raven Software, which traded the gothic horror elements of Quake for a dark fantasy vibe. Like Raven Software’s previous work, Hexen 2 earned particular praise for its graphics, though reviewers were also impressed with the core gameplay and the multiplayer mode.
After being acquired by Activision in 1997, Raven Software was put to work on a variety of different game releases, with one of the most successful being Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force. A first-person shooter game set in the Star Trek universe, the PC version of Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force was acclaimed when it released in 2000, with critics highlighting its combat, graphics, and multiplayer component. Retroactively, Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force has often been singled out as one of the best Star Trek video game adaptations made to date.
Raven Software had the unique opportunity to not just work on Star Trek games, but Star Wars as well. It did so with Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy as well as Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast, with Jedi Outcast arguably being the superior of the two games. The PC version of Jedi Outcast was a huge success, earning widespread critical acclaim and like Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force, it has often been singled out as one of the best Star Wars games ever produced. It was nominated for a variety of year-end awards, and still stands as one of the most widely-praised efforts by Raven Software.
While it is primarily known for its work on first-person shooter games, Raven Software got its start with RPGs, and it has occasionally revisited the genre over the years. It did so with the X-Men Legends games in the early 2000s, which are essentially Diablo games with X-Men characters. While both X-Men Legends and X-Men Legends 2 earned strong reviews, the edge goes to X-Men Legends 2 for refining the original game’s formula and being a more rounded experience.
Raven Software’s work on the two X-Men Legends games saw the studio being handed the reigns for the Marvel Comics universe at large for Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Sticking with the formula established by X-Men Legends, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance took things to the next level by letting players play a ton of different characters from Marvel Comics. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance also benefited from launching alongside both the PS3 and Wii, and it was praised as being one of the better games available for those platforms on launch day. Two more Marvel: Ultimate Alliance games followed the original release, but neither of them were able to live up to the legacy of their predecessor.
Raven Software’s last full game that it developed was 2010’s Singularity. While it failed to light up the world with its sales, Singularity was still generally well-received at the time of its release, praised for its high-quality first-person shooter gameplay and its unique time-manipulation powers. Various publications have named Singularity as one of the most underrated FPS games of the seventh generation, and it’s definitely worth tracking down a copy for any FPS enthusiasts out there.
Since launching Singularity in 2010, Raven Software has been working as a support studio on pretty much every new Call of Duty games that comes out each year, including the Warzone battle royale. But while Raven Software has just been a support studio for most of the Call of Duty games in the past decade, it’s being given the reigns to develop the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War campaign as the primary developer, with Treyarch working on multiplayer and Zombies. This is a great opportunity for Raven Software, and it will be exciting to see if the game can live up to the lofty expectations set by the studio’s previous work.
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