Chris Ashton started out doing freelance work on Pangea Software's Nanosaur and then entered the industry full time when hired as a texture artist by Presto Studios. While working on Presto's first real time 3D adventure game, he also joined the Counter-Strike mod team as lead texture artist. Soon after, he moved on to bigger and better things at Westwood Studios where he worked on Red Alert 2 as an environmental artist, interface artist and art lead. After RA2, Chris left sunny Southern California in search of greater things at Valve Software, where he worked as the only artist on Valve's homage to Quake on the Half-Life engine, Death Match Classic. He also worked on other projects and a few more Counter-Strike maps.
In March of 2002, Chris joined the ranks of Troika where he worked as Lead Level Designer on Bloodlines.