When Rare decided to honor Eddie Van Halen in the autumn of 2020, the video game studio did not reach for a stack of Marshall amplifiers or a striped electric guitar. Instead, the team behind Sea of Thieves picked up a tuba, a concertina, a hurdy-gurdy, and a tambourine, then delivered a sea shanty version of the 1984 hit single Jump that sounded as if it had been left out in the salt spray overnight. Even years later, in 2026, that strange little cover remains one of gaming's most memorable farewells.

Eddie Van Halen passed away on October 6, 2020, after a long fight with cancer. He was 65. As the lead guitarist of Van Halen, his death would have been a planet-sized headline in almost any other year. But 2020 was a year already roaring with so much chaos that many obituaries had to compete with other emergencies for attention. Rare, however, gave him the kind of send-off only a pirate crew could manage. The studio tweeted a cover of Jump in the distinctive musical language of Sea of Thieves, swapping keyboards and electric guitars for tavern instruments and a lead singer who sounded like he had drunk a little too much grog the night before.

The arrangement was less a note-for-note remake and more a musical message in a bottle, bobbing across the waves from a different era. It kept the song's spring-loaded spirit while wrapping it in barnacles and fog. Anyone who has spent an evening on the Sea of Thieves seas knows that its soundtrack can turn even simple melodies into something that feels discovered rather than performed. Rare's tribute leaned into that feeling, turning a stadium anthem into a dockside singalong.

🦜 The in-game instruments used for the tribute included:

• Tuba, providing the low-end bounce

• Concertina, adding that wheezing tavern warmth

• Hurdy-gurdy, scraping the melody like a bow across driftwood

• Tambourine, rattling like loose rigging in a squall

Rare accompanied the cover with a note: 'A tribute in our current Sea of Thieves style to a man whose talent and fun-loving spirit has had a huge influence on many members of the Rare family past and present, and will undoubtedly continue to do so.' The hashtag #RIPEddie closed the message like a final cannon salute.

The tribute also arrived alongside something more practical. Sea of Thieves had already been working with Stand Up To Cancer, an organization that funds research toward a future cure. From the announcement date through November 6 of that year, a portion of every Sails of Union sail purchase went to the charity.

That detail turned the tribute into more than a sentimental gesture. It gave the community a way to steer grief into something useful, like using a strong current to carry a ship out of dangerous water.

In hindsight, the whole moment was a rare bit of light in a year that often felt like a storm without a horizon. Rare used the tools of its own world—not a guitar solo, but a shanty—to say goodbye to someone whose playing could make a guitar seem like a living animal. By 2026, the clip still surfaces whenever players discuss memorials in games that got it right. The cover was not polished. It was not trying to be. That wobble in the vocals and the creak of the hurdy-gurdy made it feel human, which is exactly why it worked.

For a studio that spends most of its time building pirate adventures, the Eddie Van Halen tribute was a reminder that video game worlds can hold real grief, real humor, and real gratitude. Sometimes the best eulogy is not a documentary or a speech. Sometimes it is a few pirates on a virtual dock, making a racket with old instruments and singing Jump like they mean it.