Valkyrie’s missile pods now exist in real life thanks to a 22-year-old engineering student. Reddit user toneisdark created a functional replica of Valkyrie's launchers that can actually be pointed at targets designated through hand gestures.
As you can see in the video posted to the gaming subreddit, the articulated arm is able to track toneisdark’s hand movement, pointing its deadly payload wherever his arm is pointed. The arm is attached to a powered backpack and the aiming system has a big red button to fire the payload.
However, unlike the Apex Legends character, toneisdark’s launchers don’t fire high explosive rockets and instead just fire Roman candles. They also light off 19 fireworks rather than the 12 missiles Valkyrie fires from her twin launchers.
It took roughly two months for toneisdark to complete a single launcher shown above, and there are plans for future models.
"I'd say Mark I is complete," toneisdark told GameSpot. "It can move and shoot well, but yeah, there will be adjustments eventually for a future model which I hopefully will wear while firing. With this [current] model, due to the force exerted by the fireworks I'm currently using, the motors struggle a lot with stability during the actual firing process. I didn't have time to exchange the motors for stronger ones as this would consist of redesigning and printing the motor housings and attachments and adjusting the circuit to allow for the stronger motors, but in a future model I would love to give this a try."
Later in the interview, toneisdark explained that while Valkyrie certainly inspired this particular missile launcher, his true inspiration is a certain Marvel superhero. "My main inspiration for anything I make comes from Iron Man, honestly. My last project was a wrist-controlled flamethrower and I didn't want to do anything I considered less exciting than that."
Whether it's flamethrowers or missile launchers, we here at The Gamer must advise our readers not to try to create these implements of destruction at home. Although we also note that toneisdark reportedly suffered "no injuries" during either project.