After a brief battle with Alzheimer’s and Lewy body dementia, Sir Patrick Stewart passed away this week.
Anyone with any contact with pop culture knows of Stewart. His portrayal of intrepid starship captain Jean-Luc Picard on television’s Star Trek: The Next Generation made him a presence in living rooms across the world. He would reprise the role for decades to come. Stewart also brought Professor Charles Xavier to life on the big screen, where he cemented the leader of the mutant superheroes known as the X-Men into a comic book icon.
Like anyone else, I loved Stewart in those parts, as well as his roles in films like Jeffrey, Conspiracy Theory and Green Room, as well as amazing comedic turns in shows like Blunt Talk and American Dad! He was an actor’s actor – famous not just for range and technique, but his professionalism and work ethic. That’s why I’ll always remember how he never put himself above the world of videogames, where he turned in some banger work.
A special presence in an old school DOS classic
He’s most famously known as Emperor Uriel Septim VII in The Elder Scrolls, where he spends about five minutes with you before he gets assassinated. Stewart’s performance is such a presence that he’s been memed to death by fans of the games. Stewart went on to appear in over twenty five videogames over the course of 30 years, but the fantasy monarch I associate with him most is that of Richard LeGrey of Gladstone for the 1994 CD-ROM re-release of Lands of Lore: The Throne of Chaos by Westwood Studios.
This was back in the old days before Windows 95 was a thing, and fully voiced ‘talkie’ versions of games were considered special releases. Richard chooses the player to serve as his champion in the fight against Scotia, a shapeshifting crone and the most evil woman alive.
The other notable addition Stewart provided was ‘Lands of Lore,’ in which he narrates some of the history of the game world. It wasn’t exactly prestigious work in the 90s, but Stewart was reportedly a ‘consummate professional’ during the alloted three hour recording session.
A stalwart presence in licensed video games
Sir Patrick also went above and beyond the call of duty when it came to his portrayal of Captain Picard in four films and over 207 episodes of television. He also voiced the character for several Star Trek videogames.
In 1995’s Star Trek: The Next Generation – A Final Unity, players would point and click their way through an original adventure featuring the full bridge crew of the Enterprise-D.
Now, I wasn’t much of a Trekkie at around the time of Stewart’s prolific output as the character, but as an avid gamer I appreciated the legitimacy he gave with his performances. 2002’s Star Trek: Bridge Commander and 2003’s Star Trek: Elite Force 2 definitely felt more like ‘real’ parts of the franchise with his vocal presence. In a way, Sir Patrick was a rubber stamp of approval for a generation of Star Trek games on PC.
He provided a similar honor for the X-Men series, reprising his role as Charles Xavier across various games for the Marvel Comics franchise, beginning with 2002’s X-Men: Next Dimension, a fighting game for sixth generation consoles such as the PlayStation 2. His authoritative presence as the Professor X was the glue that held together 2004’s X-Men Legends and its 2005 sequel, Rise of Apocalypse.
More than just a franchise carry
Of course, everyone who has ever watched Sir Patrick Stewart perform not just on stage and on screen, but on various shorts, sketches and bits for comedy, late night and anthology specials know that he was game for just about anything. Whether its dressing up in mock knight armor to poke fun at audiences in Montreal, spar with Mark Hamill for an UberEats ad or voice the poop emoji in The Emoji Movie.
In videogames, he portrayed Leonardo Da Vinci, ‘the most famous Italian artist of all time – what, not Michelangelo!’ for Leonardo’s Cat, a puzzle game for iOS and Android phones. Sir Patrick also gamely provided promotional narration for 2011’s The Sims Medieval, a castles and Crusades themed spin-off of The Sims 3. He also supplied his voice to the short-lived massively multiplayer online game LEGO Universe.
But it’s in 2010’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and its 2014 sequel where Sir Patrick has arguably his most expansive part in a videogame. In it he plays Zobek, the oldest living member of the Brotherhood of Light. The game leverages his signature baritone, allowing him to portray a figure who plays against both good and evil. It’s a role that’s so well suited to Stewart, who is a natural at using the regality that comes so naturally to him to obscure the motivations and principles to his characters. I may even just re-install it tonight.
Sir Patrick Stewart will be surely missed, not just for the place he held in people’s hearts as Jean-Luc Picard and as Charles Xavier, but for his tireless work and boundless enthusiasm, his moving friendship with X-Men co-star Ian McKellen and his enduring opposition towards domestic violence, an issue that affected him and his mother growing up. Once in a while, he graced video games with his gifts, never giving them less than he could offer.