Raven Software once had live-service Call of Duty: Zombies project in development

An ex-Raven Software developer revealed the studio was working on a live-service project for Call of Duty's famous Zombies mode.

On LinkedIn, Michael Gummelt revealed he was a lead designer on the 2011-2012 project, which he called an "ambitious" undertaking. The project died after Zombies owner Treyarch "wanted it back."

Treyarch launched the mode in 2008 with Call of Duty: World at War. Since then, it's been a pillar of the annual shooter franchise and had two mobile spinoffs in the early 2010s.

Raven's recent history

Since 2010, Raven has co-developed several Call of Duty games and maintained the free-to-play Warzone. But beyond remasters, it's never had an opportunity to fully make its own mainline entry.

Warzone showed the franchise could break one of its modes off into a separate live-service undertaking. Zombies is fairly older, but it makes sense Activision Blizzard considered branching that out, too.

According to Gummelt's previous experience, Raven once tried to get away from Call of Duty entirely. In mid-2019, he helped design a sequel to an unnamed "classic Raven IP."

Like the Zombies spinoff, this unnamed sequel was later killed off, this time due to Warzone's popularity.