Team Fortress 2 Players Pay Tribute to Rick May In-Game

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Following the death of Soldier voice actor Rick May, the Team Fortress 2 community is doing its best to remember the man in some unique ways.

Yesterday, the saddening news came about that Rick May, the voice actor behind Team Fortress 2’s Solider and Star Fox 64’s Peppy Hare and Andross, had passed away at the age of 79 due to complications stemming from COVID-19. Since that time, many in the gaming community have been mourning the passing of May, with many tributes to the late actor occurring within that of TF2.

Shared on Twitter by user @DBlackjack21, those who were in Team Fortress 2 servers yesterday set aside some time to end the war between the Red and Blue teams and instead came together to honor May. The video in question that was shared from DBlackjack21 showed all of the players in a match of TF2 uniting as the Solider character to perform the shotgun taunt in unison. The action was resemblant of a 21-gun salute which is something typically seen in funerals for those that have passed away in the military.

An entire server paying respects to Rick May. pic.twitter.com/rFy5xmLUlg
— DBlackjack21 (@DBlackjack21) April 13, 2020

Another player showed off what happened in their own game, where two teams full of Soldier players clambered to the top of the bridge on the 2Fort map to also perform the same shotgun taunt over and over.

In 2fort we did the shotgun taunt repeatedly pic.twitter.com/43BFrsHely
— Харабасс Королева (@BigButtDoberman) April 14, 2020

Others across the internet have simply been sharing a voice line from May and the Solider character that sees him saying, “Godspeed, you magnificent bastard,” to remember the actor. It’s a classic line from Team Fortress 2 that has now taken a new meaning given May’s passing.

Oftentimes, video games can be quite goofy and multiplayer gaming communities can easily get a bad reputation for being overly toxic and whatnot. But in light of events like this one with May’s death, it’s always great to see communities coming together in ways just like this. It adds some much-needed humanity to these otherwise virtual worlds that we all spend so much time in.

Godspeed indeed, sir.