Chris Roberts was born on May 27, 1968. He is a British and American video game designer, programmer, and filmmaker. While working at Origin Systems, he created the Wing Commander series. Since 2010, he has been working on the crowdfunded space simulator Star Citizen.

Early life

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

Career

In 1986, Roberts returned to the United States to visit his parents, who had moved to Austin, Texas. In 1987, Chris Roberts joined Origin Systems. There, he created a game called Times of Lore, which was released in 1988. The game’s design influenced other Origin products, including the popular Ultima series. A similar system was used in Roberts’s next game for Origin, Bad Blood, which came out in 1990.

Wing Commander was published in 1990 and was very successful. The Wing Commander series became Origin’s most popular product. Roberts was not heavily involved in the sequel Wing Commander II, which he only helped produce. Instead, he focused on Strike Commander. First shown to the public at Summer CES 1991, the project faced many delays and was not released until 1993. Afterward, Roberts returned to Wing Commander, creating the idea for the spin-off Wing Commander: Privateer (produced by his brother, Erin Roberts). He was more involved in Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV, directing the live-action scenes in these games. Because of his role in developing Wing Commander, Next Generation named him one of their “75 Most Important People in the Games Industry of 1995.”

Following the traditions of Origin Systems, Chris Roberts’s home near Austin, Texas, was named “Commander’s Ranch,” a reference to the Wing Commander series.

In 1996, Roberts left Origin and founded Digital Anvil with Tony Zurovec and his brother, Erin Roberts. He said he was unhappy with working in large teams and with Origin’s parent company, Electronic Arts, which refused to fund games that were not sequels. The new studio was based in Austin and worked quietly for several years until it signed a publishing deal with Microsoft in 1997.

Roberts wanted to make films and games with Digital Anvil. In 1999, he directed the film Wing Commander, which starred Freddie Prinze Jr. and used visual effects from Digital Anvil. The film did not receive much critical praise or financial success.

Digital Anvil’s first completed game was Starlancer, released in 2000. The game was well-received by critics and was developed by Warthog and Digital Anvil, with production by the Roberts brothers and Eric Peterson. Microsoft later acquired the company and sold two of its projects—Conquest: Frontier Wars (led by Eric Peterson) and Loose Cannon (led by Tony Zurovec)—to Ubisoft. Roberts left the company after the acquisition, stepping down from the director role of his ambitious project Freelancer, though he remained a consultant for a time. Freelancer was considered delayed for many years due to its original 2001 release date, but it was finally released in 2003 with changes from the initial plan.

After leaving Digital Anvil, Roberts founded Point of No Return Entertainment, planning to make films, television, and games. However, no projects were produced by this company. In 2002, he founded Ascendant Pictures and worked as a producer on several Hollywood films, including Edison, Timber Falls, Outlander, Who’s Your Caddy?, The Big White, Ask the Dust, Lucky Number Slevin, and Lord of War. These films were mostly funded by a loophole in German tax laws, which was closed in 2006. Roberts’s film work ended when the funds from this scheme ran out. In 2005, actor Kevin Costner sued Ascendant Pictures over a contract for an unreleased film. The company was bought by Bigfoot Entertainment in 2010.

In 2011, Chris Roberts founded Cloud Imperium Games with his wife, Sandi Roberts, and business partner Ortwin Freyermuth. In October 2012, Cloud Imperium launched a crowdfunding campaign to develop a space simulation game called Star Citizen. The campaign later added a Kickstarter effort. By November 2012, the company had raised $6,238,563, surpassing all goals and breaking crowdfunding records. Roberts stated that if $23 million was raised, no outside funding would be needed. This goal was met on October 18, 2013.

As of June 11, 2024, Cloud Imperium Games has raised over $700 million through crowdfunding and over $63.25 million in external investments. The company’s other project, Squadron 42, a single-player campaign set in the Star Citizen universe, is still in development. It is expected to release in 2026 and has been fully completed since 2023, entering the final polish phase.

Personal life

Chris Roberts had a relationship that started and ended several times with his common-law wife, Madison Peterson. Roberts and Peterson lived in a home in San Diego. He has one daughter with Peterson. His first marriage to actress Sandi Gardiner, who was born on May 24, 1980, in Adelaide, Australia, ended in 2005. Roberts married Gardiner again in 2009. In 2007, Roberts sold his house in Hollywood. After that, he was unsure if he would stay in Los Angeles, so he rented homes for 10 years. In September 2018, he bought a house for $4.7 million through the Roberts Family Trust. The house is located in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles. He also has a daughter named Skye Roberts with Gardiner. Skye is an actress born in Santa Monica.