Chris Roberts

Early life Roberts was born in Redwood City, California to a British father and an American mother, and grew up in Manchester, England. He attended Parrs Wood High School, the same school as computer music composer Martin Galway. As a teenager, he created several video games for the BBC Micro, including Stryker's Run, Wizadore, and King Kong.

Career

Origin Roberts returned to the United States in 1986 to visit his parents, who had settled in Austin, Texas. A similar game system was used in Roberts's next release for Origin, Bad Blood (1990).

Wing Commander was published later in 1990 and was highly acclaimed. Wing Commander (and the franchise it spawned) soon became Origin's most successful product. Roberts wasn't as heavily involved in the sequel Wing Commander II, which he only produced. He instead concentrated on Strike Commander. First shown to the public at Summer CES 1991, the project suffered from numerous delays and was not released until 1993. He returned to Wing Commander soon after, devising the original concept for the spin-off Wing Commander: Privateer (which his brother, Erin Roberts, produced) and being more deeply involved in Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV. For these sequels, Roberts directed the live-action cinematic scenes. Roberts's major role in developing the Wing Commander games led Next Generation to name him one of their "75 Most Important People in the Games Industry of 1995".

Following the traditions of Origin Systems, Chris Roberts's residence at the outskirts of Austin, Texas was named "Commander's Ranch", a reference to the Wing Commander series.

Digital Anvil Roberts left Origin in 1996 and founded Digital Anvil with Tony Zurovec and his brother Erin Roberts.

Roberts had stated that he desired to produce films as well as games with Digital Anvil. The 1999 feature film release of Wing Commander directed by Roberts himself, starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and featuring visual effects from Digital Anvil, failed to attract either critical praise or financial success.

Digital Anvil's first finished game was Starlancer, released to a generally favorable critical reception in 2000. Developed jointly between Warthog and Digital Anvil, the game was produced by the Roberts brothers, and Eric Peterson. The company was acquired by Microsoft soon after, who sold two of Digital Anvil's projects, Conquest: Frontier Wars led by Eric Peterson, and Loose Cannon led by Tony Zurovec to Ubisoft. Roberts left the company after the acquisition, abandoning the director position of his ambitious project Freelancer, although he remained with the game in a consulting role for a while. The game was commonly regarded as vaporware due to its promised release date of 2001; however, it was eventually released in 2003 with a markedly different feature set than the initial plans.

Point of No Return Entertainment/Ascendant Pictures After leaving Digital Anvil, Roberts founded Point of No Return Entertainment, planning to produce films, television and games. However, no projects materialized from Point of No Return. Roberts founded Ascendant Pictures in 2002 and served as a producer for a number of Hollywood productions including Edison, Timber Falls, Outlander, Who's Your Caddy?, The Big White, Ask the Dust, Lucky Number Slevin and Lord of War, which were almost entirely financed by a loophole in the German tax laws that was finally closed in 2006. Roberts' activities as a film producer ended with the depletion of the funds raised by this controversial financing scheme. The company was acquired by Bigfoot Entertainment in 2010.

Cloud Imperium Games

In 2011, Chris Roberts founded Cloud Imperium Games with his wife Sandi Roberts, as well as business partner and long-time international media attorney Ortwin Freyermuth. Cloud Imperium Games' other title in development, Squadron 42, a single-player campaign set in the Star Citizen universe, is still in development with an estimated release date of 2026, having allegedly been feature-complete and in the polish phase since 2023.

Personal life Roberts had a long on-and-off relationship with his common-law wife Madison Peterson. Roberts sold his Hollywood house in 2007.

Works Video games Name Year Credited With Publisher King Kong 1983 designer BBC Micro User Match Day 1985 designer (BBC Micro port) Ocean Software Wizadore 1985 designer Imagine Software Stryker's Run 1986 designer, programmer, artist Superior Software Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny 1988 designer Origin Systems Times of Lore 1988 director, designer, writer, programmer, tester Origin Systems Bad Blood 1990 director, designer, programmer Origin Systems Wing Commander 1990 director, lead designer, producer, programmer Origin Systems Wing Commander: The Secret Missions 1990 producer, programmer Origin Systems Wing Commander: The Secret Missions 2: Crusade 1991 producer, programmer Origin Systems Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi 1991 producer Origin Systems Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi: Special Operations 1 1991 creative director Origin Systems Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi: Special Operations 2 1992 creative director Origin Systems Strike Commander 1993 director, producer, artist, programmer Origin Systems Strike Commander: Tactical Operations 1993 producer Origin Systems Wing Commander: Privateer 1993 executive producer Origin Systems Wing Commander: Armada 1994 producer Origin Systems Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger 1994 director, producer, writer, actor Origin Systems Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom 1996 director, executive producer Electronic Arts Starlancer 2000 executive producer Microsoft Conquest: Frontier Wars 2001 producer, writer Ubisoft Freelancer 2003 original concept Microsoft Game Studios Star Citizen TBA director Cloud Imperium Games Squadron 42 2027 director Cloud Imperium Games Films Name Year Credited With Distributor Wing Commander 1999 director, actor 20th Century Fox The Punisher 2004 executive producer Lions Gate Entertainment The Jacket 2005 executive producer Warner Independent Pictures The Big White 2005 producer Momentum Pictures Lord of War 2005 producer Lionsgate Films Ask the Dust 2006 executive producer Paramount Classics Lucky Number Slevin 2006 producer Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Who's Your Caddy? 2007 executive producer The Weinstein Company Outlander 2008 producer The Weinstein Company Black Water Transit 2009 executive producer Capitol Films