Raven Software had some big plans to make their own Call of Duty game based on the Zombie mode created by Treyarch. Not only that, but it’s also been revealed that they were working on reviving a classic IP that was also canceled by Activision.
For the last decade, Raven Software has been a major support studio for Activision that assisted on and co-developed many of the recent Call of Duty games. However, it wasn’t always like this, as the studio did develop and release their own games prior to this shift, with a long history dating back to the ’90s. Yet despite that, for over ten years now, they’ve been working on Call of Duty games, though that’s not to say that they didn’t try to make their own game.
This is all according to former Raven Software Lead Designer Michael Gummelt’s LinkedIn profile, claiming that the studio was working on two titles.
The first is Call of Duty, though it would have been their own, similar to how Treyarch has Black Ops and Infinity Ward Ward has Modern Warfare. It was a spin-off of Treyarch’s own Zombie mode and was described as being a live service version. Sadly, Treyarch assumedly stepped in to cancel it as they wanted that portion of their IP back.
Furthermore, the studio attempted again to make a game under their name, though moving away from Call of Duty. This happened back in 2019, with the studio having prototypes for a revival of one of their classic IPs. That was canceled by Activision in favor of developing Warzone.
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There’s no word on what this classic IP would have been, though many speculate it was a new Hexen.
With Microsoft now owning the studio as part of the Activision-Blizzard King buyout, one has to wonder if Raven Software will take another crack at making a new game. One can hope.