Raven Software is an American video game developer based in Madison, Wisconsin. It was founded in 1990 by brothers Brian and Steve Raffel after getting a publishing deal for their first game, Black Crypt (1992). During that game's development, the company formed a relationship with id Software, which was briefly located on the same street. Raven spent the next few years working primarily on PC games in partnership with id, making ShadowCaster (1993) with a game engine by id Software and three games in the Heretic series between 1994–1997 with id as the publisher and id Software employees as the producers. In 1997, Raven made an exclusive publishing deal with Activision, and the Raffel brothers subsequently sold the company to Activision. Several employees left Raven Software at that time t