Raven Shield is a better vanilla game in most areas and the mods that enhance it enhance the killing aspect of the game, as opposed to tactical.
SWAT 4 has better mods, imo, and can make for a highly fun experience both SP and co-op.
If it ever came down to it and I have to pick 1 game or the other I would pick Raven Shield over unmodded SWAT 4, but modded SWAT 4 over unmodded Raven Shield. There's more weapon types, more skins, bigger and more complex levels (albeit less detail and realism in them as SWAT 4) and female soldiers to play as. Having said that, if that's your thing, you'll like this game more than SWAT 4 because I said, there's more variety and the tactical elements in general are numerous. You really feel like the police in SWAT 2 - 4, whereas Raven Shield is more to do with gun down everybody with a gun without much thought. I think playing as SWAT itself is more of an original concept and before people say other games have SWAT skins in them, I mean the feeling of being a SWAT officer in a game is incredibly rare in games. Raven Shield however I find to be more fun, has more variety and greater replay value but at its heart is just another military shooter that's been done to death. You're easier to kill, have lower ammo and having your squad face a certain direction can make the difference between life and death. SWAT 4 on higher difficulties is the way to go for a better tactical experience because it relies on supposedly stunning or not killing enemies and definitely not civilians. For example SWAT 4 lets you give specific commands such as to cover x door, flash y door, arrest z target, but Raven Shield has the pre-battle planner and it lets you command more soldiers and even change between squads on the fly.
SWAT 4 has deeper tactical prowess on its higher difficulties, whereas Raven Shield all-round is the more tactical game. I love tactical shooters and I am a little bias toward the SWAT games because I've been with it since the 90s, but I'll give it a go to put forward my thoughts on the 2 games. Ghost Story's game, which still doesn't have a title, was reportedly in the " later stages of production" in October 2020, but an employee interviewed for the Bloomberg report said the actual release could still be two years away from today.Old topic but I've been playing Raven Shield Gold again this past week (or rather last week) after recently playing SWAT 4 from GOG. The report offers some very interesting insight into why a project that was expected to be on a smaller scale than Levine's previous releases is taking so long-and why we might still have a long wait before we get a proper look at it.
Levine reportedly told employees that the cost of maintaining Ghost Story is essentially a "rounding error" for Take-Two, which publishes game series including Grand Theft Auto, Civilization, and Red Dead Redemption. Take-Two is apparently happy to keep funding Levine and Ghost Story, effectively with no strings attached, in hopes that it will eventually lead to the creation of a major new franchise. "When it continuously goes in cycles and you don’t align anymore, you kind of get tired of being part of that," he said. Roughly half of the original Ghost Story team has left the studio since it was founded, says former employee Mike Snight, who moved with Levine from Irrational to Ghost Story when it was founded and then left five years later. Clashes with Levine weren't uncommon, and could sometimes result in a dismissal of employees who were deemed a bad fit, according to the Bloomberg report.