On March 19th, the first season of Apex Legends officially kicked off, bringing with it “new Legends, fresh loot, and special events,” along with a slew of freebies for all players. But the real pick of the bunch was Octavio ‘Octane’ Silva, the game’s first new hero who probably looked familiar to those who had caught wind of recent online leaks.
Octane is looking to spice things up in a big way and already, the reception to him has been pretty positive, with a lot of people finding themselves choosing the Legend as their go-to character every time they hop into a new match. What you may not know about Mr. Silva, however, is that he was actually inspired by a real-life Titanfall 2 speedrunner.
You see, Octane lost both his legs during a “record-breaking gauntlet speed-run,” and the official description for the hero describes him as so:
“Heir to the preoccupied CEOs of Silva Pharmaceuticals and wanting for nothing in life, he entertained himself by performing death-defying stunts and posting holovids of them for his fans to gawk over. So, this day, he decided to set the course record for a nearby Gauntlet by launching himself across the finish line — using a grenade.”
That brings us to Titanfall 2 speedrunner Cash Mayo, who currently holds the world record for running the Gauntlet in precisely 12 seconds, which he managed to do by gaining speed thanks to well-placed frag grenades. Sound familiar? The trailer introducing Octane even references the Gauntlet speedrun, with the “What is the Gauntlet” annotation linking out to Mayo’s video of his accomplishment.
All things considered, it’s a nice little tribute to Cash Mayo and it’ll be interesting to see whether or not future new additions to the line-up also callback to any real-life figures. After all, we know that Respawn has at least 10 other heroes in the pipeline for Apex Legends, and after seeing how well Octane turned out, we can’t wait to find out what else they’ve got in store for us.
