Sir Patrick Stewart’s Most Iconic Video Game Roles

For countless players, Sir Patrick Stewart was more than just a famous actor: he was the emperor who started their Tamriel adventures and the mentor who guided Gabriel Belmont. Stewart died in Los Angeles on October 28, 2026, at age 86, with his wife Sunny by his side after a brief struggle with Alzheimer’s and Lewy body dementia. Long before he lent his talents to video games, the Yorkshire native made his mark with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and as Captain Picard in Star Trek and Professor Xavier in X-Men, roles that became pop culture landmarks.

Plenty of actors of Stewart’s stature wouldn’t have picked up the phone for a video game role in the 1990s and 2000s, but he showed up time and time again, performing at the same level he would for a major Hollywood film. Whether playing royalty, a scheming knight, or reprising his most beloved film characters, Sir Patrick Stewart treated his gaming roles with the same respect he gave his Hollywood ones. Here are the performances we will always remember him by.

Anyone who booted up The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion in 2006 knew exactly who was playing the Emperor before the credits ever rolled. Bethesda Game Studios’ massive open-world RPG opens with the player locked in a prison cell, before Uriel Septim VII shows up fleeing assassins with his Blades bodyguards. Stewart’s performance gave the Emperor a level of grandeur that made you feel reverence for him in the brief time you spent together.

Uriel Septim VII only gets a few minutes of screen time before the Mythic Dawn cult assassinates him, but his short appearance kicks off the main quest and delivers a memorable performance. With his final breaths, he hands you the Amulet of Kings and sends you to find his last heir, Martin Septim, voiced by another icon, Sean Bean. The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered brought both performances back for a new generation in 2025.

Zobek / Death – Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow rebooted Konami’s legendary vampire-hunting series as a linear action game in 2010, and MercurySteam brought in Stewart to give it instant credibility. Stewart plays Zobek, a battle-hardened knight of the Brotherhood of Light who guides Robert Carlyle‘s Gabriel Belmont, and he narrates the story at the start of every chapter. The game is far from the best the series has to offer, but Stewart’s performance made Zobek one of the most memorable characters in the franchise.

Zobek unmasks himself as the Lord of the Dead in a surprising twist, and reveals that he manipulated Gabriel into slaying the other Lords of Shadow for his own gain. Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 brought Stewart back as the scheming Zobek, now forced into an uneasy alliance with Gabriel in order to stop Satan’s return. Zobek’s mentor-to-villain transformation makes him feel like two different people, but Sir Patrick Stewart effortlessly embodies both sides of the character.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Professor Charles Xavier – Star Trek and X-Men Games

Image via Paramount Television

Stewart never strayed far from his two signature roles, and for fans of Star Trek and X-Men, video games were the best way to spend more time with Picard and Xavier between movies. His debut video game role was a reprisal of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity in 1995, a point-and-click adventure that reunited the show’s cast for what played like a lost episode. He took the captain’s chair again in the real-time strategy game Star Trek: Armada in 2000 and the first-person shooter Star Trek: Elite Force II in 2003.

Professor Charles Xavier received the same treatment. Stewart voiced the leader of the legendary hero team in X-Men: Next Dimension (2002), X2: Wolverine’s Revenge (2003), and X-Men: The Official Game (2006), giving each tie-in instant credibility. His best Xavier work came in Raven Software’s action RPGs X-Men Legends and X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse. In the latter, he was the only member of the films’ cast to reprise his role.

Sir Patrick Stewart never treated video games as a lesser stage, and gamers took notice. Whether he was a doomed emperor in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, a treacherous Lord of the Dead in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, or the Picard and Xavier fans grew up with, he gave every role the same conviction he brought to beloved films. Stewart will be remembered for theater, film, and TV, but he earned his place as a gaming icon too.

Birthdate

July 13, 1940

Birthplace

Mirfield, Yorkshire, England, UK

Birthname

Patrick Hewes Stewart