Evidence building that Apex Legends' next character is Octane

Update: A Daily Esports report points to a March 12 release date for the first Apex Legends Battle Pass, with the heavily rumoured Octane not only confirmed as real, but tipped to release "alongside the Battle Pass or just before it." 

Daily Esports also secured this better quality image of the rumoured Legend

Original story:

Over the last 24 hours, new rumors and unconfirmed leaks about the next Apex Legends character have circulated from multiple sources, supporting prior rumors and even pointing, maybe, to an imminent release of a new character called Octane and/or the first season, which we're expecting sometime in March. Although EA has not announced anything officially, let's lay out the information we have so far.

Speculation about unreleased characters began weeks ago when dataminers uncovered a list of what appeared to be names of unreleased characters, spotting "Octane" among a list of others like "Crypto," "Jericho," "Rosie," and "Prophet." Strings uncovered from this data like "octane_stim_inject" and "octane_stim_release" suggested that Octane would be a character whose kit includes some kind of injection system, a trope not uncommon to games (and Batman villains) that seemed believable in Apex's sci-fi setting.

Yesterday, a redditor named Beartoots shared an image that makes a strong visual connection with this description

Neon tubing and a cylinder attached to the character's hip in the image above suggest some kind of injection mechanism, while metal legs indicate that Octane, if this is indeed them, could be a cyborg. 

The poster did not say whether or not they were themselves a tester of Apex Legends with access to a private version of the game. The only additional detail they offered was that the "Right image is from the 'Deep Dive' trailer when it shows the silhouettes of the next two Legends." The watermark on the image, "childz_pl4y," is associated with a private Instagram account with 32 posts.

The same day, another user on Reddit shared an image with the same watermark that added more detail. Although the text shown here is something that's easier to doctor, the character image behind the information pane is not. This second image shows Octane's abilities in Apex's store menu (alongside, notably, a new tab for the first season.) They are as follows:

Swift Mend (Passive) While not taking damage, Octane restores health over time.

Adrenaline Junkie (Tactical) Move 30% faster for 6 seconds. Costs 10% health. Immune to slows while active.

Launch Pad (Ultimate) Deployable jump pad that catapults users through the air.