Hashima Island

[BlueMue]

Ever heard of Hashima Island? It's a japanese offshore island about 15 Km from Nagasaki. It's also called Gunkanjima Island because from a side view it looks somewhat like a battleship. It was originally used as a coal mining facility under the control of Mitsubishi and was officially closed in 1974 and has been falling appart since.

Now, why am I posting a thread about this? Because it totaly reminded me of Kowloon when I saw pictures of it. And the best thing, you can explore the island with all it's ghost buildings in Google Street View! So try it out and take in the awesome eerie atmosphere.

https://www.google.de/maps/place/Hashim ... 536ecbeea4

[OL]

Cool.
Doesn't really remind me of Kowloon at all, though. Actually, my first thought when seeing it was that it looks kind of like the final areas of the game Killer 7.

phpBB [video]

Come to think of it, Hashima may actually have been the direct inspiration for the place in Killer 7. The idea of it looking like a battleship is there too (closer to the end of the video).

[BlueMue]

Well yeah it's not exactly like Kowloon but a bit closer to the one in Shenmue II with the more spread buildings.
It's just that I immediatley think about it when I see such deteriorated high rise buildings.

Oh and I think it has actually been mentioned that Killer 7 indeed took this island as inspiration. I wonder why it hasn't been used in many more games. It's really a great scenario.