Chris Roberts | Code Like It's 198x

In the spring of 1987 Superior Software, looking for new programmers, printed a testimonial from one of its authors in Acorn User. At his previous publisher, he said, getting his royalties “was like getting blood out of a stone”. At Superior, “just 6 weeks after the release of Stryker’s Run I received my first royalty cheque which amounted to more than £5000.” The author was Chris Roberts, a teenager from Manchester. By 1988 he was working in Texas, and by the end of 1991 his space combat game Wing Commander was Computer Gaming World’s game of the year. He went on to put Mark Hamill in a computer game, direct a Hollywood film of his own game, produce other people’s films, and raise more than a billion dollars from players for a game that is still unfinished.

Fast facts

Born: 1968, in the United States; grew up in Manchester, England.
BBC Micro: Wizadore (Imagine, 1985), the BBC version of Match Day (Ocean, 1985) and Stryker’s Run (Superior Software, 1986).
Origin Systems: Times of Lore (1988), Bad Blood (1990), Wing Commander (1990) and its sequels, Strike Commander (1993).
Digital Anvil: founded in Austin in 1996; Starlancer (2000); sold to Microsoft, which finished Freelancer (2003) without him.
Films: directed Wing Commander (1999); produced Lord of War (2005) and Lucky Number Slevin (2006).
Cloud Imperium Games: Star Citizen and Squadron 42, crowdfunded from 2012 and still in development.

BBC Micro games

Roberts was born in America but, as The One put it in 1992, “spent most of his formative years in Manchester”. Amiga Computing heard his “Manchester twang” behind his Texan accent in 1988. The composer Martin Galway, who later scored his games, was an old schoolfriend.

His first commercial game was Wizadore, a BBC Micro arcade adventure published in 1985 at £7.95 under the Imagine name, which Ocean had bought from the liquidators. Computer Gamer’s reviewer called it “Imagine’s second release for the BBC Micro since their recent revival”: a hero with limited magic, who draws his power from scrolls, crossing forests and dungeons past archers and guards. The graphics were “excellent, being colourful and smooth”, but the early levels were “far too difficult”. The One later dated Wizadore to “around 1983”, but the reviews and charts place it in 1985.

The same year he converted Ocean’s football game Match Day to the BBC Micro. Computer Gamer noticed the problem he had faced, the BBC’s lack of hardware sprites, and credited him by name: “The programmer (Chris Roberts) has made a great attempt at ‘pseudo-sprites’, however, and the players and ball are satisfyingly large and convincingly animated.”

Stryker’s Run (1986) was his breakthrough. Superior Software’s advertisement named him as “Game Author” and promised “probably the best graphics ever seen on the BBC Micro”: Commander John Stryker runs, shoots and crawls across a war zone to carry secret documents to the Allies’ headquarters. It cost £9.95 on cassette, and Superior called it its first release with a specially enhanced version for the 128K BBC Master. In February 1987 it was number one in Acorn User’s chart of BBC Micro games: “Lieutenant John Stryker runs up to the top”. Not every reviewer agreed with the advertising: Acorn User admired the “absolutely excellent graphics” but found the sprites flickered and the action slow.

The sequel, Codename: Droid (1987), was not his. Acorn User credited it to “the authors of Ravenskull”.

Origin: Times of Lore and Bad Blood

Amiga Computing reported in 1988 that Roberts had “worked for Imagine in Britain before Origin’s desire to develop a populist role-playing game transported him across the Atlantic”. That game was Times of Lore (1988), released for the Commodore 64 and other machines, with graphics by Denis Loubet and music by Galway. It was an action role-playing game controlled entirely with the joystick: the player picked a knight, a valkyrie or a barbarian, spoke to villagers through menus of keywords, and watched a candle burn down instead of a count of hit points. Computer Gaming World’s Scorpia called it “a beginner’s computer role-playing game”, and Richard Garriott praised its interface as better than his own Ultima’s. In Britain, where MicroProse sold it, the advertisements called Roberts an “acclaimed British designer”.

Bad Blood (1990), a post-nuclear role-playing game for the PC, fared worse. Charles Ardai of Computer Gaming World judged it “top-flight work” in its mechanics but found “no compelling reason to play Bad Blood and several reasons not to”, and accused Roberts of not taking his own creation seriously.

Wing Commander

While finishing Bad Blood, Roberts had the idea for a space combat game. It was released in September 1990 as Wing Commander, with bitmapped ships that scaled and turned as they closed in, a score that changed with the fighting, and a story that went on between missions. Computer Gaming World made it the game of the year for 1991; the Wing Commander entry tells the full story. Warren Spector was among its producers.

Wing Commander II followed in 1991. Origin advertised Roberts’s next game, the air combat game Strike Commander, “produced and directed by Chris Roberts”, for Christmas 1991; it reached the shops in 1993. By then Roberts was preparing Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger (1994), with filmed actors in place of drawn characters: Mark Hamill, Malcolm McDowell and John Rhys-Davies. He was its director and executive producer. “In the past, when I created the first two Wing Commander games, I tried to be as cinematic as possible, but the technology held me back,” he told PC Gamer in 1994. Accounts of its budget differ widely, from about $3 million to about $18 million. For Wing Commander IV (1996) he returned “to the director’s chair”, in Computer and Video Games’ words, with a budget “reputedly nearing $10 million” and scenes shot on 35mm film on real sets.

Digital Anvil and the film

Roberts left Origin, by then owned by Electronic Arts, in 1996. With his brother Erin and Tony Zurovec, the designer of Crusader, he founded Digital Anvil in Austin. “One of the problems I faced at EA was that I could get any amount of money for another Wing Commander, but not something new,” he told Edge in 1997. He wanted small teams of experienced people, not the 300 he said Origin had grown to, and Digital Anvil signed with Microsoft, which also bought a share in the company in 1997.

Its first game, Starlancer (2000), was a Wing Commander-style combat game made largely by Erin Roberts with the British developer Warthog, while Chris worked on the much larger Freelancer. Digital Anvil also made a film. Roberts directed Wing Commander, released in American cinemas in 1999 on a reported budget of $30 million; Computer Gaming World did not think it “even rental-worthy”.

At the turn of 2001 Microsoft bought Digital Anvil outright and Roberts left. PC Player quoted him, in German: “I don’t really want to work for a big publisher again. If I did, I would have stayed at Electronic Arts.” He stayed on Freelancer as a consultant, and Microsoft released it in 2003.

Hollywood

Roberts then worked in film. Through his company Ascendant Pictures he produced, among others, the arms-dealer drama Lord of War (2005) and the thriller Lucky Number Slevin (2006). When Edge interviewed him in 2012, it summed up the decade as “film directing with Wing Commander and then movie production for a few years”.

Star Citizen

He came back to games in 2012 with Cloud Imperium Games and Star Citizen, a space game he announced at the Game Developers Conference in October. Its Kickstarter asked for $500,000 and, as Retro Gamer reported, finished at $2,134,374. The crowdfunding carried on after the Kickstarter and passed $1 billion on 24 May 2026, with the game still in development and no release date. Its single-player campaign, Squadron 42, which Roberts calls a “spiritual successor to Wing Commander”, has Mark Hamill in its cast again. In August 2026 its release was moved to the second quarter of 2027.

Sources

Superior Software advertisement, “Could This Be You?”, Acorn User issue 57, April 1987, p. 160: Roberts’s testimonial (the royalty cheque of “more than £5000” six weeks after release).
Acorn User issue 55, February 1987: top 20 BBC Micro games, Stryker’s Run at number one.
Superior Software advertisement for Stryker’s Run, Acorn User issue 52, November 1986, and Computer Gamer issue 20, 1986: “Game Author: Chris Roberts”, the prices and the story. Acorn User issue 61, August 1987: the Stryker’s Run advertisement (“the best graphics ever seen on the BBC Micro”; the enhanced version for the BBC Master) and the news that Codename: Droid was by “the authors of Ravenskull”.
Acorn User issue 54, January 1987: Stryker’s Run review.
Computer Gamer issue 3, June 1985, pp. 58–59: Wizadore review (Imagine’s second BBC release since its revival). Your Computer, June 1985: Wizadore, BBC, Imagine, £7.95. ZZAP!64 issue 13, May 1986, p. 102: Ocean’s revival of the Imagine name, with Wizadore among “the opening gambits”.
Computer Gamer issue 8, November 1985, p. 68: Match Day review (BBC B, Ocean, £9.95, “The programmer (Chris Roberts)”).
“All about Wing Commander”, The One issue 46, July 1992, p. 28: his age, birth in America and Manchester, Wizadore, Stryker’s Run, Times of Lore, Bad Blood and the first ideas for Wing Commander.
Amiga Computing vol. 1 no. 7, December 1988: Origin feature (Roberts “a Mancunian”, Imagine, Times of Lore).
ZZAP!64 issue 44, December 1988: Times of Lore advertisement (MicroProse; music by Martin Galway; £9.95 cassette). ACE issue 16, January 1989: the same advertisement (“Acclaimed British designer Chris Roberts”).
Computer Gaming World issue 55, January 1989: Scorpia’s Times of Lore review, p. 59; the Origin visit (Garriott on the interface; Denis Loubet’s graphics), p. 32.
Charles Ardai, Bad Blood review, Computer Gaming World issue 74, September 1990.
Computer Gaming World issue 89, December 1991: Strike Commander advertisement. PC Player (Germany), June 1993: Strike Commander completed.
Gary Whitta, Wing Commander 3 feature, PC Gamer (UK) issue 8, July 1994: Roberts as director and executive producer; the quotation.
Computer and Video Games issue 174, May 1996: Wing Commander IV review.
Edge issue 48, August 1997: Roberts leaves Origin; Digital Anvil with Erin Roberts and Tony Zurovec; 35 staff; Microsoft; the quotation.
Computer Gaming World issue 193, August 2000: Starlancer review (Warthog and Erin Roberts). Issue 167, June 1998: the film’s $30 million budget. Issue 179, June 1999: the film reviewed.
PC Player (Germany), February 2001, pp. 31–32: Microsoft buys Digital Anvil; Microsoft’s stake since 1997; Roberts leaves; the quotation. PC Zone issue 99, February 2001: Roberts to stay on Freelancer as a creative consultant.
Wireframe issue 40, June 2020: Freelancer released in 2003, after Roberts had left.
Edge issue 247, December 2012, p. 24: “Interstellar return”, interview on his years in film and Star Citizen.
Wikipedia, “Lord of War” and “Lucky Number Slevin” (web, secondary): Roberts among the producers; Ascendant Pictures. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_War and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucky_Number_Slevin
Wikipedia, “Cloud Imperium Games” (web, secondary): founded in 2012; Star Citizen announced at GDC on 10 October 2012. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Imperium_Games
Retro Gamer issue 112, March 2013: the Star Citizen Kickstarter ($500,000 goal, $2,134,374 raised).
David Schroth, “Star Citizen crosses $1 billion in crowdfunding after 14 years”, The FPS Review, 26 May 2026 (web, secondary). https://www.thefpsreview.com/2026/05/26/star-citizen-crosses-1-billion-in-crowdfunding-after-14-years-still-has-no-release-date/
Matt Sowinski, “Squadron 42 delayed to 2027”, CGMagazine, 28 August 2026 (web, secondary): the delay, the cast and Roberts’s “spiritual successor to Wing Commander”. https://www.cgmagonline.com/news/squadron-42-star-citizen-spinoff-delayed-to-2027-because-of-grand-theft-auto-vi/