Summary
Voice acting for video games wasn’t always seen as artistic or prestigious, but the tables have turned in recent years, and the industry is getting considerably more respect.Bethesdawas always ahead of the curve in this regard, and they cast some big Hollywood names to be voice actors in Tamriel before it was fashionable.
A few of the voices that players will hear inThe Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remasteredare the same ones from the original game, but some new voices only appear in its newest incarnation. Several of the following voice actors have appeared in a wide variety of video games, while others are better known forlive-action movies and television.
7Debra Wilson
As The Dremora And Orc Females
As one of the new voices in the remastered version ofOblivion, Debra has appeared in several games from the Bethesda library. Anyone who has playedESOor a couple of theWolfensteingames has heard her voice before, but her whole portfolio reaches much further.
Players may also recognize Debra’s voice from the showMad TV, in which she appeared for eight seasons, along witha variety of other voice actingjobs outside Bethesda’s catalogue. Examples include video games such asDiablo 4andHalo Infinite.In 2022, she became the first African-American to perform the voice of Minnie Mouse onMickey Mouse Funhouse.
6Keith Szarabajka
The Dark Elf Male Voice
The list of Szarabajka’s work on Bethesda video games barely scratches the surface of his body of work, which goes back decades and also includes extensive roles in film and television. His career began in the early 1980s, but took off in the 1990s with TV shows that includedThe X-Files,Star Trek: VoyagerandStar Trek: Enterprise, along with a recurring role as vampire hunter Daniel Holtz inAngel, aBuffy The Vampire Slayerspinoff.
Other than several audiobooks and an impressive list of video games, Keith’s more prominent roles include the main villain Dmitri Yuriev in theXenosagatitles, the Archangel Azrael inDarksiders: Wrath of War, and Detective Herschel Biggs, one of the main supporting characters ofLA Noire.
5Cindy Robinson
The Dark Elf Female Voice
Anime fans might recognize this voice before their video game counterparts. Cindy has voiced characters in theBleachseries andFire Emblemfranchise, along with performing the character of Zola inBlue Dragonand Queen Beryl inSailor Moon. She’s also been the voice of Amy Rose in theSonic the Hedgehogfranchise since 2010.
Her career in voice acting started in 2000, and before that, she worked in musical theater and appeared in productions ofInto the WoodsandPeter Pan. Going through the extensive list of voice acting in anime, cartoons, television shows, and movies, it’s hard to imagine how a single personcan get so much done.
4Terrance Stamp
Mankar Camoran, Main Antagonist
Terrance Stamp only plays a single role inOblivion, but it’s a memorable one as the big bad, Mankar Camoran, leader of the Mythic Dawn. Spoiler alert: the assassination of Uriel Septim is his idea and a part of his plan to create his own plane of Oblivion, which is something only a Daedric prince has the power to do. This isn’t the first time that Terrance has made an antagonist iconic; one of his most memorable roles was as General Zod in the 1981 Superman movie.
3Lynda Carter
Voices Female Nords And Orc NPCs
Unlike the other big stars that appear inOblivion, Lynda Carter doesn’t play a single pivotal character,but covers the voices for several. She started her career in the spotlight, starting in 1972 when she was crowned Miss World USA, which led to her becoming the spokesperson for Maybelline a few years later, one of her most well-known public personas.
Carter appeared on popular shows likeStarsky & HutchandCos, before being cast asWonder Woman. The iconic portrayal of a favorite DC superhero resonated for decades, and she had a brief but memorable cameo in a mid-credits scene as former Amazon warrior Asteria inWonder Woman 1984.
2Sean Bean
The Voice Of Brother Martin
The running joke about Sean Bean’s live-action career is that he almost always plays a character who dies in a messy, dramatic way. Think of characters like Boromir fromThe Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Alex Trevelyan fromGoldenEye 007, or Ned Stark fromGame Of Thrones, to name a few of the most popular examples.
That being said, and spoiler alert, the fate of Martin Septim isequally spectacular and tragic, as he chooses to sacrifice himself to save Tamriel from Oblivion. The main quest leads the character to Martin almost immediately out of the Imperial City sewers, so the protagonist gets a good, long time to learn to respect his wholesome nature before watching him die.
1Patrick Stewart
Uriel Septim, Assassination Victim
Players might be expectingUriel Septim’s lines to include phrases like “Make it so,” or commands like “Execute.” That’s because Patrick Stewart’s distinctive voice is also that of the doomed Emperor, the same actor who embodies one ofStar Trek’s most beloved characters, Jean-Luc Picard.
Sir Patrick Stewart’s career goes back to 1959, when he played a pickpocket in a theater production ofCyrano de Bergerac. His TV debut was in 1967 as a fire officer on the popular show Coronation Street, but he was always open about his preference for theater acting. All that changed dramatically, however, when he agreed to play a role in theStar Trek: The Next Generationrevival series, thinking the show would quickly fail. The rest is entertainment and media history.
