10 Beloved Video Game Studios That Publishers RUINED

4. Raven Software

X-Men Legends II Wolverine Magneto
Raven Software

Back during the early noughties, Activision were in full control of the Marvel license. Although this did lead to the occasional dud, for the most part the company enjoyed modest success from their Marvel games; Treyarch produced a seminal release in Spider-Man 2, and an underrated classic in Ultimate Spider-Man. But it wasn't the wall-crawler who was having all the fun - Marvel's mutants where fully in on the act too.

Releasing in 2004 and 2005, the X-Men Legends series put players firmly in the shoes of the Uncanny X-Men, with the sequel - Rise of Apocalypse - even allowing them to play as Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Raven would later expand their horizons with Marvel: Ultimate Alliance and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, before trying their hands at the FPS genre again in Wolfenstein and Singularity.

The latter would prove to be their last full release.

Shortly after Singularity released in 2010, the studio was restructured and shipped off to assist on Call of Duty. In the decade since, every single project Raven has worked on has had something to do with Call of Duty.

Before this, Raven developed seminal titles in Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, as well as its follow-up, Jedi Academy. Today, however, they do nothing but 'assist' development on CoD. Cheers, Activision!

[EP]

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.

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Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked full time as a content producer at WhatCulture for nine years. In that time he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple channels, specialising in subjects such as gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 most listened to gaming podcast in the UK that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, covered breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.