Charles Cecil MBE (born 11 August 1962) is a British video game designer and co-founder of Revolution Software.

His family lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo when he was still very young, but was evacuated two years after Mobutu Sese Seko's coup d'état.

In 1980 he began his studies in Engineering Manufacture and Management at Manchester University, where he met student Richard Turner who invited him to write text adventures for Artic Computing.

The following year he established Paragon Programming, a game development company working with British publisher U.S. Gold.

For the company's first title, Lure of the Temptress (1992), Cecil conceived with others an innovative game engine, called Virtual Theatre, that was designed by Tony Warriner.

Cecil's interest in cinematic techniques and technical developments became manifest in Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars and the games that followed.

Nevertheless, he continued to design by implementing the so-called "Hollywood model", in which each time a team is assembled to create a movie.

Lure of the Temptress was followed by a string of critically and commercially successful adventure games, including Beneath a Steel Sky, the Broken Sword series, In Cold Blood and Gold and Glory: The Road to El Dorado.

He was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to the video game industry.

As a baby, Charles lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo where his father David was sent by Unilever to reconstruct their accounting systems.

[2] When Cecil was two and his mother Veronica[3] was about to give birth to his sister, they were evacuated after Mobutu Sese Seko's coup d'état.

[12] After completing his degree in 1985, Cecil decided to continue his career in game development and became director of Artic Computing.

[13] When Artic closed down, he established Paragon Programming (1986),[14] a game development company working with major British publisher U.S. Gold.

Together with Noirin Carmody, his then-partner and General Manager at Activision UK, they founded Revolution Software (March 1990).

[5] For the second title, Beneath a Steel Sky (1994), often referred to as a cult classic,[21][22] Cecil contacted comic book artist Dave Gibbons.

The divergence of and distinction between film and video games is one of Cecil's pet subjects,[23] and his interest in cinematic techniques and technical developments would become manifest in Revolution's upcoming titles.

He started to hire external talent from the TV and film trades for the big-budget production Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars (1996).

[27] Unlike In Cold Blood, that combined 3D characters with pre-rendered graphics, the third Broken Sword game, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon (2003), became a real-time 3D adventure game, with mild action elements (such as using stealth, climbing, shimmying, and pushing objects).

[5] In the same year, he decided to release Beneath a Steel Sky (and Lure of the Temptress) as freeware[31][32] and the source code was given to ScummVM.

[36] As he stated in various presentations,[9][10] the situation was caused by the fact that big publishing companies had been controlling for years the supply and demand side of the game market, and little was left for independent developers.

[8] In the new situation, he implemented the so-called Hollywood model, in which a producer and director come together and assemble a team to create a movie.

[39] In March 2009 Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars – The Director's Cut was published by Ubisoft for the Wii and DS that included new material.

[42] He had been contacted by Apple to see if he would consider to bring Revolution's classic titles to the App Store,[43] and Cecil on his turn had contacted Dave Gibbons to work on new editions of Beneath a Steel Sky, Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars – The Director's Cut and Broken Sword: The Smoking Mirror – Remastered (2010).

[66] Cecil was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2011 Birthday Honours for services to the computer games industry.

[67] Revolution Software quickly established itself as Europe's leading adventure game developer with a string of titles, which have been critically and commercially successful.

[68] Revolution's next game In Cold Blood, published in 2000 by Sony Computer Entertainment, focused on telling stories through action based gameplay and was met with mixed reviews, though it sold very well.

In 2009 Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars – The Director’s Cut was released for the Wii and DS, followed by Beneath a Steel Sky – Remastered for the iPhone.

Cecil loves history and physics-based science, but also enjoys physical activity, like rowing, competing in regattas, football, and tennis.