While Call of Duty has dominated the headlines during the US and UK’s regulatory opposition to Microsoft’s now-imminent acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, it’s one of Call of Duty’s unheralded developers that Microsoft is in a unique position to unlock once the deal closes. That developer is Madison, Wisconsin’s own Raven Software, a studio with a highly decorated resume that has had its talent used against them over the past decade. The team there is so talented and reliable that they have been stuck helping ensure that Call of Duty releases on time, every single year, with a high bar of quality.
Activision shareholders would doubtless be happy to see them keep doing what they’ve been doing, to be sure – and not that there’s any shame in being a support studio that helps make a game become the best possible version of itself – but as gamers, we deserve to see Raven released from its cage, free to fly high and make its own choices once again. And the thing is, once Microsoft’s deep pockets are funding Call of Duty each year, Phil Spencer (whom Activision-Blizzard will report to as an organization) could and in my opinion should find someone else to do Raven’s Call of Duty dirty work – and give Raven a chance to do what Xbox so desperately needs: make more new, excellent games.
Raven got its start working in close partnership with id Software on Heretic, the medieval-fantasy version of Doom that proved to be a stellar game in its own right. That success spawned three sequels: Hexen, Hexen 2, and Heretic 2. Later, Raven would go on to prove that it can make killer games using someone else’s IP, adding the stellar Star Wars Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast (and a sequel, Jedi Academy) to its portfolio, along with the first-person shooter Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force, and a few in the Marvel universe: the M-rated, ultraviolent X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and the well-regarded action-RPGs X-Men Legends and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. They even did Quake 4 for id, who was busy working on Doom 3 at the time. The studio’s last project before being sentenced to Call of Duty prison was the underrated time-manipulating first-person shooter Singularity.
To be clear, all of the Activision-Blizzard studios Microsoft is about to acquire are talented. But I’d argue that none have the incredible track record that Raven does. Its creative potential is probably not being fully realized right now because of Call of Duty, and I hope Phil Spencer sees fit to change that. Fortunately, he gave us a big hint that suggests he may indeed be thinking along those same lines, as his t-shirt at the Xbox Showcase was a deliberate choice. You can’t just walk into Target and grab a Hexen t-shirt. Phil had that shirt made, and he wore it on purpose.
A Hexen reboot could be a huge boon to Xbox, as one example. And even better, through the twists and turns of corporate buyouts, Raven and id Software would both be under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella, meaning that Raven could tap into idTech 666 (or whatever new version the studio is cooking up) for a potential Hexen revival. Heck, a quick look on LinkedIn shows that some of the original Hexen developers are still there, including Raven cofounders Brian and Steve Raffel, designer Eric Biessman, artist Rob Gee, level designer Chris Foster, and others.
The point is, Raven has more than proven that it’s capable of being more than just the glue that holds Call of Duty together each year. The team there is no doubt bursting with new game ideas. Here’s hoping Phil Spencer unleashes them.
