Johnny Depp Plays A Blind Sea-Faring Con-Man In ‘Sea Of Dawn’ Video Game Trailer

Johnny Depp has once again created an eccentric sea-loving character.

The “Pirates of the Caribbean” star, 59, appears in a just-released teaser trailer for “Sea Of Dawn,” the new massively multiplayer online role-playing game from Chinese gaming company Changyou, as Deadline reports.

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The video game is set around the time of the Age of Exploration in the 16th century and allows players to choose between sailing the high seas in warships (presumably commissioned by the crowned heads of Europe) or in pirate ships.

The teaser, released Thursday to build hype for the game’s release in the U.S. and Europe later this year, sees Depp embody a role that qualifies as classic Johnny Depp: a fez-wearing, blind, former adventurer and seafarer named Phillip who spends most of his time at home surrounded by souvenirs of his past glory.

When the audience meets Phillip, he’s on the wrong side of a tax collector (played by Francisco Rodriguez). But, like many of Depp’s characters, Phillip is cunning and fully capable of evading the law. Rather than shun the tax collector, Phillip lets the man in, assured by his ability to get the interloper off his back. At first distracting and diverting the tax-man — Depp’s Phillip even sets his beard on fire at one point — the star ultimately rids himself of the nuisance by persuading him to take up the call to adventure and sail the seas. “Your journey awaits you out there, on the tides,” Depp says as he pushes the man out the door.

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“If there’s an opportunity for humor, I’m going to grab it,” Depp says in a behind-the-scenes video documenting the making of the trailer. “I want to watch a character who has the proper chutzpah to do things I would never do.”

According to Variety, Depp played an important role in developing his character for the teaser which shot at the end of last year in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, long before the actor faced off against his ex-wife Amber Heard in court.