Sea Of Thieves devs made a pirate shanty tribute to Van Halen
Dance the night away
Eddie Van Halen, song writer and lead guitarist of iconic rock band Van Halen, passed away this week. Across the internet, tributes have poured out for the legendary rocker, including a rather surprising one from Sea Of Thieves developer, Rare. They've made a pirate shanty cover of the song Jump. It's a bit weird, but you know what? It's really sweet, too.
When I first hit play on this I found the extremely west country vocals a little... jarring. It almost sounds as though a farmer snuck about the ship to perform a concert. The piratey instrumental behind it all is really lovely, though, and there's a pretty epic concertina solo in place of the famous guitar solo which is an absolute delight as well.
Earlier this year, Sea Of Thieves made it so that shanties no longer play at random when you whip out an instrument, instead it allows players to choose from a wheel of tunes to play. It would be brilliant to see a song like this show up on that wheel.
A plethora of legal issues would likely prevent that, though, so for now I'll have to stick to daydreaming about rocking out to a bit of Van Halen on the old hurdy-gurdy.
Disclosure: My partner works in community management for Sea Of Thieves. I don't believe he had a hand in making this song, but I'm sure he likes it, too.