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Roberts came to the United States in 1986. He created Times of Lore, published by Origin in 1988. The game's interface had a strong influence on other Origin products such as the popular Ultima series. Roberts also worked on several other Origin games including Bad Blood (1990), Pacific Strike (1994), and Strike Commander (1993).
Wing Commander was published in 1990 and was highly acclaimed. Thereafter followed 6 years of Wing Commander-branded games, books, a cartoon show, and a 1999 feature film.
Following the traditions of Origin Systems, Chris Roberts' residence at the outskirts of Austin is aptly named Commander's Ranch, a reference to the Wing Commander series he created.
Roberts left Origin in 1996 and founded Digital Anvil along with Origin producer Tony Zurovec and his brother Erin Roberts, who created Wing Commander: Privateer in 1993.
The fledgling studio set up shop in Austin, Texas and for several years worked quietly, inking a publishing deal with Microsoft in 1997.
Roberts had stated that he desired to produce films as well as games with Digital Anvil. 1999's release of a Wing Commander-based feature film (directed by Roberts himself) starring Freddie Prinze Jr unfortunately failed to attract either critical praise or financial success.
Digital Anvil released Starlancer in 2000, to a somewhat luke-warm reception, and was shortly thereafter fully acquired by Microsoft. Roberts left the company in 2001 during the development of the extremely ambitious Freelancer, a game that was commonly regarded as vaporware due to its promised release date of 2001. The game was eventually released in 2003 with a markedly different feature set than the initial plans, but was received fairly favorably.