American video game development company
Raven Software Corporation is an American video game developer based in Wisconsin and founded in 1990. 🏀 In 1997, Raven made an exclusive publishing deal with Activision and was subsequently acquired by them. After the acquisition, many 🏀 of the studio's original developers, largely responsible for creating the Heretic and Hexen: Beyond Heretic games, left to form Human 🏀 Head Studios.
History [ edit ]
id Software [ edit ]
Raven Software was founded in 1990 by brothers Brian and Steve Raffel.[2] 🏀 Originally a three-person company, they were discovered by John Romero, co-founder of id Software, who collaborated with Raven to make 🏀 games using their game engine beginning with ShadowCaster.[3] Raven then started making games with id Software; the company even briefly 🏀 moved to the same street as id Software.[4] They used id's engines for many of their games, such as Heretic, 🏀 Hexen: Beyond Heretic and Hexen II.
In 2005 and 2009, Raven developed two games from id's catalog: Quake 4 and Wolfenstein 🏀 respectively.[5]
Activision [ edit ]
The company was independent until 1997, when it was acquired by Activision forR$12 million.[6] They were still 🏀 collaborating with id Software but at the same time developed other titles as well such as Soldier of Fortune in 🏀 2000, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy in 2003, X-Men Legends in 2004 and many more.
In August 2009, following poor 🏀 performance and possible over-budget of Wolfenstein,[7][8] the company made a major layoff of 30-35 staff, leaving two development teams. This 🏀 was reduced to one after more layoffs in October 2010, after delays with Singularity; as many as 40 staff were 🏀 released. Following the layoffs and after id Software was bought over by ZeniMax Media, Raven has since become a primary 🏀 developer for the Call of Duty series.[9][10][11]
In December 2024, Activision did not renew the contract of several members of the 🏀 quality assurance (QA) department that were contract employees. One of the associate managers said that "valuable members" were fired although 🏀 they "were promised, for months, that Activision was working towards a pay restructure to increase their wages".[12] Following these firings 🏀 as well as other controversies revolving Activision Blizzard, a strike has been initiated.[13][14] On January 21, 2024, Raven's QA team 🏀 formed a union named the Game Workers Alliance with Communications Workers of America.[15]
In May 2024, a group of quality assurance 🏀 testers from Raven Software successfully organized a union known as the Game Workers Alliance, with the vote being 19 for 🏀 and 3 against.[16] In June 2024 Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick stated that the company would recognize the union and 🏀 begin negotiations with it.[17]
Games [ edit ]
In 2012, Raven began hiring employees for a game,[18] and were announced as collaborating 🏀 with Infinity Ward on Call of Duty: Ghosts in May 2013.[19]
On April 3, 2013 following the closure of LucasArts, Raven 🏀 Software released the source code for Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy 🏀 on SourceForge under the GPL-2.0-only license.[20]
In April 2014, the company became lead developer of the now shutdown free-to-play Chinese Call 🏀 of Duty title, Call of Duty: Online.[21] The company also remade Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, titled Call of 🏀 Duty: Modern Warfare Remastered.[22]
In 2024, Raven Software collaborated with Infinity Ward on the game Call of Duty: Warzone. The company 🏀 is considered the face of maintaining, updating and debugging the game as they regularly provide status updates and patch notes 🏀 on Twitter and their official website (though it is unclear if they are the sole studio responsible behind-the-scenes).[23][24][25]
Raven developed Call 🏀 of Duty: Black Ops Cold War with Treyarch, which released on November 13, 2024.[26]
