Patrick Stewart, the actor best known as Star Trek's Jean-Luc Picard and X-Men's Professor Charles Xavier, has died at 86. For a lot of players, though, he is the voice that opens The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, where he played Emperor Uriel Septim VII.
His death was announced in a statement on his official social media accounts on October 29, as Inven Global, PC Gamer and Kotaku all report. We couldn't check the original post directly, so the details of the statement below are attributed to the outlets that quote it.
What the family said
According to Kotaku, which quotes the statement, Stewart died on Wednesday, October 28, at his home in Los Angeles, in the care of his wife Sunny, "following a brief and poignant journey with Alzheimer's Disease and Lewy Body Dementia." Inven Global and PC Gamer quote the same wording about Alzheimer's disease and Lewy body dementia.
Inven Global reports that the statement described him as "a son of Mirfield in the West Riding of Yorkshire" and asked for donations to the Johns Hopkins Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Fund and the Alzheimer's Foundation of America's caregiver resources in lieu of flowers. PC Gamer lists the same two charities. Inven Global adds that the statement closed with a line from his memoir, Making It So: "In the end, he feels the call of home, as do I."
The emperor who opened Oblivion
Kotaku calls Uriel Septim VII perhaps Stewart's most well-known video game role. Inven Global notes that he voiced the emperor in Bethesda's Oblivion in 2006, and both outlets report that his original recordings were carried over into The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered in 2025.
The part is short. The emperor is the man fleeing assassins whose escape route is hidden in your prison cell in the game's opening, and he doesn't survive the tutorial. PC Gamer's tribute describes it as Stewart giving his "deep, sonorous voice" to the role, and calls it maybe his most famous game part.
A longer list of game credits than you might expect
Oblivion wasn't a one-off. Inven Global reports that Stewart played Zobek in Konami and MercurySteam's Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and its 2014 sequel, voiced Professor Xavier in several X-Men games including X-Men Legends, and lent his voice to Star Trek games as Picard, from A Final Unity in 1995 to Star Trek: Legacy in 2006.
PC Gamer adds two more: he narrated Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos and played Khelben Arunsen in Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone.
The wider career
Outside games, PC Gamer reports that Stewart joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1966, took his first television role a year later on Coronation Street and debuted on Broadway in 1971, before Star Trek: The Next Generation made him famous worldwide. He was knighted in 2010, according to PC Gamer.
Kotaku notes that he returned as Picard in Star Trek: Picard from 2020 to 2023, and that his final performance as Charles Xavier will be in Avengers: Doomsday, due to premiere on December 18.
Tributes followed quickly. Inven Global reports that Marvel Studios said he brought Xavier to life "with extraordinary grace, intelligence, and humanity." PC Gamer reports that William Shatner called him "a friend, a colleague, and a magnificent actor," and that Ian McKellen described him as "a man to rely on, to admire and in my case, love."
Sir Patrick Stewart was 86.
Reporting notes
