Digital Anvil was founded in early 1997 by Chris Roberts, Erin Roberts and Tony Zurovec and a team of about 30 people, most of which joined DA from Origin. We initially worked on four very ambitious games: Freelancer, Starlancer, Conquest and Loose Cannon. Starlancer was released in 2000, Conquest was released (via another publisher) in 2001, Loose Cannon is currently under development by Sinister Games and we’re getting very close to finishing Freelancer. Digital Anvil Studios is also working on a very exciting new X-Box game called “Brute Force” that is headed up by industry veterans Bill Baldwin and Erin Roberts. We actually also released a movie: Chris Roberts directed “Wing Commander (based on his game series) during his tenure here at Digital Anvil.
Phil Wattenbarger.
(Project Leader): Phil started at Origin in 1992 as a designer on the original “Privateer” and then moved into the Lead Designer position on the add-on “Privateer: Righteous Fire”. He then switched internally to the Crusader team and worked with Tony Zurovec on the successful “Crusader: No Remorse” as a designer. After No Remorse shipped, Phil joined Chris Roberts and started working on a Privateer 2 game that was unfortunately never completed. When Chris Roberts, Erin Roberts and Tony Zurovec formed DA in early 1997, Phil was one of the early members of the company and started working on Freelancer as the Lead Designer. He switched to the Project Lead/Producer role two years ago, When Microsoft acquired Digital Anvil. Phil is heading up the entire group and organized the development effort – he’s also taken on direct creative direction of audio.
Jorg Neumann
(Lead Designer): Jorg has been working in the industry since 1993 when he started in Origin’s translation department. His first job was to translate “System Shock” and “Wing Commander III”. In the following year, he also worked on “WC IV”, “USNF”, “BioForge”, “Wings of Glory”, “Fade to Black” and others before he joined the Crusader team in 1995, when Producer/Director Tony Zurovec asked him to join the team as an Associate Producer. Jorg worked on “Crusader” No Remorse”, “Crusader: No Regret” and the PSX and Saturn ports of the series. When Tony left Origin in 1996, Jorg started a new (3D) Crusader project, but ultimately decided in 1997 to leave Origin and to join Tony, Chris and other friends here at DA and started working on Loose Cannon as Lead Designer/Co-Producer. When DA was acquired by MS in December 2000 and the decision was made to concentrate on fewer projects, he took over the role of Lead Designer for Freelancer. Jorg is heading up a group of ten designers (Adam Foshko, Brian Hackert, David Chang, Dustin Cryer, Eric Willmar, Jacob Crow, John Sripan, Scott Shelton, Todd Degani, and Will Dougherty).
Paul Isaac
(Lead Engine Programmer): Paul’s first exposure to video games was on the Atari 2600. He became enchanted with designing his own games. While in high school, playing “Ultima 4” on his Apple IIe inspired him to teach himself how to make games. He spent a summer writing an “Ultima”-clone then went off to college. The folks at Origin liked it enough to offer him a job... so he dropped out of college and headed for Texas. He worked at Origin four about 10 years, but never managed to work on an “Ultima”. Instead he teamed up with Chris Roberts on titles like “Times of Lore”, “Bad Blood”, “Wing Commander”, “Strike Commander”, “WC 3DO”, “Prowler” and “Wing Commander 5”. After that he left with Chris to start Digital Anvil... where he's been working on Freelancer ever since. Paul is leading a group of five programmers (Aaron Otstott, Mark Kness, Gary Smith, Scott Stevens, and Simon Travis) that are responsible for engine development.
Ed Maurer
(Lead Game Programmer): Ed earned his BS in Computer Science from UT Austin and then joined Origin in 1992 and began working on “Strike Commander” for Chris Roberts. He then took on the role of Lead Programmer on “Privateer” and then worked on several aborted projects with Andy Hollis. Ed then rejoined with Chris Roberts and began tool development for Wing Commander. In late 1996, he left Origin to join Digital Anvil, where he was immediately very involved in architecting the DA libraries as well as Freelancer. Ed plays a mean game of “Robotron”, “Joust” and “Stargate”.
Tony Bratton
(Lead Multiplayer Programmer): Starting off in 1991 at Origin with “Ultima VII”, Tony has been involved with making games for over 10 years. His projects at Origin included “Wings of Glory”, “Bounty Hunter”, and “Hardcore”. After spending time leading Origin's core technology group, Tony moved on to Titanic Entertainment where he helped to ship “NetStorm”. After “NetStorm” has been completed, he moved to Digital Anvil as the CTO, guiding the development of core tools and technology. For the last year, he’s been helping out on “Freelancer”, first with its Real-Time Cinematics group and now with its multiplayer component. Tony is currently heading up a development team of two (the other programmer being the very experienced Steve Nichols).
Bruce Lemons
(Lead Artist): A veteran of the industry, Bruce has worked on games since 1991 and was involved with projects such as “Wing Commander 2”, “Ultima VII”, “Strike Commander”, “BioForge” (Lead Artist), “Ultima IX” and Ultima Online. Bruce is currently heading up a team of over 10 artists on Freelancer.
Martin Galway
(Lead Audio Engineer): Martin’s first job making music and sound-effects for games was in 1983 at the age of 17 at Database Publications, who published a national British magazine for the 2MHz BBC Microcomputer – then the leading machine in use in schools. After he approached Ocean Software in 1984 with some sample work, he was loaned a Commodore 64 development system and ended up working there until 1987, mostly on the C64 where he was able to make a real, positive contribution to game music. After a brief productivity hiatus Martin joined Origin Systems in 1990 and worked on the "Commander" and "Ultima" games. He left to help form Digital Anvil in 1996 and has been here ever since. Since the early days he has seen sound for games morph from simple beeps to what it is today - digital audio & surround mixing in full-blown studios that also service the film and television industries. He’s enjoyed maintaining game sound's most important role throughout - conveying the marriage of story and entertainment (that fictional environ that compels the player to play).
Harry Jarvis.
the in-game Cinematics Director, came to gaming in a roundabout fashion. After studying theater at Duke University (go Blue Devils!) and working as a technical director and lighting designer (or anything that would pay) for 5 years in Texas and on the west coast, he spent 10 years working in motion pictures, both in Hollywood and overseas, on nearly 30 feature films ranging from “Little Man Tate” and “William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet” to “Species” and “Deep Impact”. It was as an Assistant Director that he got his first introduction to PC game development, working with Chris Roberts & Mark Day on Origin System’s live-action (FMV) shoots of “Wing Commanders: III & IV” in Hollywood. Harry did a brief stint on a project called “Silverheart” at Origin before Chris left to start DA. When Chris decided to make “Wing Commander” into a motion picture, he dragged Harry off to Luxembourg to help on that shoot. On their return, the storyline for “Freelancer” had started to take shape, and Chris asked Harry to direct the Real-Time Cinematics (RTC) for it. Drawing on his motion picture background, he brought in an experienced film Cinematographer, Adam Joseph, to ensure that the look and feel of our scenes stayed as cinematic as possible.
