Hot Drop is Oxtero’s weekly Apex Legends column, in which Jordan Ramée takes a closer look at Respawn’s battle royale to provide additional insight into the game’s evolution, as well as dive deeper into its episodic storytelling and characters.

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks for Apex Legends. As we near the end of Season 12’s Quest, The Perfect Son, Lifeline and Octane stumbled upon a startling realization: Octane’s dad, Eduardo « Duardo » Silva, isn’t actually his dad. The real Eduardo Silva has been dead for a while, meaning the big bad of Apex Legends has been an imposter. So the big question is, of course, who the hell is Duardo?

We don’t know all that much about Eduardo or Duardo, but we have a rough timeline of the two men’s lives. Eduardo is the childhood friend of Darian Che–Lifeline’s dad–and the two played in Pecks Labs as kids. A genius, Eduardo would grow up to become the CEO of a galaxy-wide pharmaceuticals company called Silva Pharmaceuticals.

Eduardo would go on to create Stim, the powerful adrenaline drug used by Titan Pilots and, eventually, his son, Octavio « Octane » Silva. Eduardo wasn’t a great dad or husband, marrying four times and neglecting Octavio for the entirety of his life. I assume that somewhere here in Apex Legends’ timeline is the point where Eduardo dies and Duardo takes his place. Because it’s after this that Octane begins to notice some slight differences in his father’s behavior, including a willingness to orchestrate a terrorist attack during Season 7’s Quest, Family Portrait.

We subsequently learned that the attack was actually planned in an effort to undermine people’s belief in The Syndicate, the ruling group of The Outlands. Duardo continued this campaign in subsequent seasons, orchestrating the release of the deadly Medusa Vines virus in Season 9’s Quest, The Legacy Antigen, and the fall of Olympus.

He shifted the blame in both cases, making it seem like The Syndicate was responsible for it all. Now the general public blames The Syndicate for the Medusa Vines reaching Olympus, as well as for « allowing » a dangerous terrorist (Mad Maggie) to enter the Apex Games, who everyone blames for the fall of Olympus.

Lifeline and Octane have both long suspected that Octane’s dad has been doing all of this to shake public perception of The Syndicate so much that people will call for the group to fall under new leadership–and who better than the CEO of Silva Pharmaceuticals? His company was the one that distributed the cure for the Medusa Vines, and he added an easier-to-understand, more « family-friendly » bloodsport to the Apex Games (the limited-time Control mode). He also bankrolled a pretty hefty public relations campaign through Lisa Stone’s new podcast (she was the reporter who was interviewing Forge when Revenant stabbed him in the back), which revealed that The Syndicate was to blame for a lot of problems in The Outlands.

It’s after all this that Lifeline and Octane learn the truth about Eduardo and Duardo–the former has been dead for years, proven by his death certificate locked away in the latter’s safe. But who is Duardo? Well, I have a few theories:

Duardo is a simulacrum

This isn’t incredibly likely given that all simulacra in the Titanfall/Apex Legends universe seem to have very robotic appearances, implying that technology hasn’t evolved to the point to make them look human. And Duardo looks very human.

But this is also a universe where secret alien technology allowed someone to travel back and forth through time, so it’s just as likely that the necessary technology to make a simulacrum look human does exist. That isn’t a huge stretch of the imagination.

The basis of this theory rides on the fact that those close to Duardo, like his son and friends, haven’t noticed any major changes in his behavior–just small ones. So either Duardo has been Eduardo since he was a kid, or Duardo has somehow found a way to inherit Eduardo’s memories. As seen with Revenant and Ash, simulacra inherit the memories of the mind they are based on.

Duardo is a zombie

Also unlikely, but maybe Duardo is Eduardo after he died and came back to life. Revenant is able to use some horrifying technology to prevent his allies from dying–so it isn’t unthinkable that a more advanced version of his Death Totem exists, keeping Duardo alive as a shadow of his former self.

Duardo is a clone

Alright, let’s get to the more likely stuff. Maybe Duardo is just a clone. Do clones exist in the Titanfall/Apex Legends universe? Not to anyone’s knowledge. But like, c’mon–Respawn could totally write a « he’s a clone » storyline and we’d all just accept it. It’s a staple of the science fiction genre.

Duardo is Eduardo…but from another universe

This is my favorite theory. Apex Legends has dabbled with its multiverse since Season 2, when we learned that Wraith is actually from a different universe where the IMC beat the Militia during the events of Titanfall 2–she switched places with the Wraith of this universe. Then in Season 3, Pathfinder accidentally wandered into another universe where Revenant managed to kill everyone and ruled his army of shadows as a god. All of the legends returned to this shadow universe in Season 5’s Quest, The Broken Ghost collecting the scattered pieces of a simulacrum that ended up being this universe’s Ash.

So Respawn has already established that there are multiple variations of the characters in Apex Legends, all of whom exist across a wide variety of universes, each of whom has a very different history. And if that’s the case, why can’t Duardo just be Eduardo from a different universe?

This could answer the biggest question I have concerning Duardo: What’s his motivation? Duardo is the big bad of Apex Legends right now. He’s an abusive dad to Octane and wants to take over the organization that is either directly or indirectly in opposition to Wraith, Horizon, Mad Maggie, Revenant, Caustic, Bloodhound, Lifeline, and Crypto. But we still don’t really know why he wants to take over The Syndicate. Duardo already oversees one of the most prominent companies in The Outlands–he has an obscene amount of money and influence, so it’s not like he’s wanting in either department. Wanting to also take over The Syndicate doesn’t make any sense.

Sure, greedy rich people tend to just want more money and power but that’s a fairly boring motivation all things considered. I hope Duardo has motivations beyond just simple greed.

Like, maybe Duardo is doing all this in an effort to strengthen The Outlands. Maybe he’s from a universe that was devastated by some multiverse force and he’s traveled to this universe in order to prepare The Outlands for the coming threat. Or, hell, maybe Duardo is the threat, and he’s working to ultimately weaken The Syndicate in order to divide The Outlands and prime them for invasion.

Either scenario could potentially lead to a war between universes many seasons down the line. In several ways, Apex Legends is building towards a potential Titanfall 3 (maybe something I’ll discuss in a later column), and the idea of it centering around a multiverse war sounds cool as hell.

Duardo is some opportunistic guy

This is a less exciting variation of the multiverse theory. Duardo could be working towards strengthening or weakening The Outlands in preparation for instigating an attack on The Core Worlds or defending from an invasion from The Core Worlds.

This would mean Duardo doesn’t have to be from another universe. He could just be a guy made to look like Eduardo. We’ve already seen face reconstruction done in the Titanfall/Apex Legends universe–Crypto had to change his face via cybernetics to avoid facial recognition while on the run. It stands to reason that Duardo could do the same in order to trick facial recognition into thinking he’s one of the richest, most well-known men in The Outlands.

Duardo is just Eduardo and no one actually died

A boring and admittedly unlikely theory, but still possible: Maybe Duardo is just Eduardo and no one died–meaning the death certificate that Lifeline and Octane found is just a red herring to distract them from whatever the man is actually hiding. This would tie into The Williams Sendoff fairly well, which saw Wraith discover the death certificate for Jackson Williams, Bangalore’s brother. Jackson’s death certificate seems super fake (I still think Bangalore’s brother is Newcastle, potentially Season 13’s playable legend), so maybe Eduardo’s death certificate is also a fake.

Regardless of what’s going on, the revelation about Eduardo and Duardo will very likely impact Apex Legends’ story for seasons to come. At the very least, the revelation has created a schism between Octane and Lifeline’s sibling-like relationship. Those two are presumably the only ones other than Duardo who know the truth, since Eduardo’s death certificate has now gone up in flames. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t more proof out there, but for now, Duardo’s secret is safe.