A Founder Steps Away
After 36 years steering one of PC shooters’ most storied studios, Brian Raffel is stepping away from Raven Software. The studio’s co-founder confirmed his retirement from game development in a LinkedIn post, closing a chapter that began in 1990 when he and his brother Steve set up shop in Wisconsin.
Raffel has worn several hats over the decades. He served as Raven’s Vice President from the start and took over as Studio Head in 1997, the year Activision acquired the studio. He’s also held the title of Vice President at Activision since that acquisition. In 2024, leadership duties began to shift as Raffel started sharing the Studio Head role with Dave Pellas, a veteran who joined Raven in 2011.
“It’s hard to put into words what this journey has meant for me,” Raffel wrote. “From those early days building Raven to becoming the first studio acquired by Activision, I’m grateful for the people, the culture and the games we created together. Most of all, I want to thank my brother Steve. Taking this path together and choosing Activision was one of the best decisions of our lives.” Steve Raffel retired from Raven in 2017.
From Heretic To Warzone
Raven’s story tracks closely with the rise of first-person shooters on PC. The team’s debut, Black Crypt, was an Amiga-first dungeon crawler later known on PC for its DOS sibling ShadowCaster. Momentum truly kicked in with 1994’s Heretic, published by id Software, which fused Doom-speed gunplay with dark fantasy. Heretic helped introduce inventory items to the genre and even allowed players to look up and down—features that signaled where shooters were headed. A recent Nightdive remaster shows it still hits hard.
Success bred a string of formative hits. HeXen doubled down on Heretic’s ideas, while Soldier of Fortune pushed gore and ballistics in a way few mainstream shooters dared at the time. Many still point to the studio’s pair of Star Wars sequels—Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy—as high-water marks thanks to their still-remarkable lightsaber combat. That blend of technical ambition and feel-good action became a Raven signature.