Fukushima Evacuation Area Overrun With Vegetation

It’s been seven summers since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. The homes and apartments closest to the reactor are still abandoned. They are now also engulfed by plant life. Asahi Shimbun uploaded the video below. It’s in Japanese, but the images, many of which were taken by helicopter and drone, are a good reminder that…

Yu Suzuki Explains Shenmue III‘s Stiff Facial Expressions 

Rest easy if you thought the Shenmue III trailer was real bad. In a recent interview, Yu Suzuki talked about the “stiff” facial animations, saying that they’re temporary. Phew. Here is the exchange with Japanese website Game Watch Impress as Yu Suzuki watched the Shenmue III trailer. Game Watch Impress: Is this trailer all in-game?…

Old And New. Osaka Castle, Osaka, Japan. By Chris Bryan. JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line! 

The beautiful Super Famicom-themed 3DS XL that Japan got last year is finally headed to Europe and Australia—two markets whose SNES shared the same design—in October.

Xbox Live Was Down For Over Five Hours [Update]

Xbox Live is experiencing some serious downtime at the moment, with many owners unable to play games or even sign in. [Update: it’s back] This is Xbox Live’s status page at time of posting. As you can see, both “core services” and purchasing are affected. Microsoft is aware and looking into the problem: This means…

Blizzard Making A Bunch Of Changes To Overwatch‘s Competitive Mode

Overwatch’s fifth competitive season was not the game’s finest hour. Doom and gloom dominated the proceedings, and no, those aren’t the names of Reaper’s shotguns. For season six, Blizzard is changing things up, albeit with a series of tweaks, as opposed to a total overhaul. The biggest news is that competitive seasons will be shorter…

Throw NBA 2K18’s Cover In The Trash

Didn’t we only just go through this with PES? Now it’s NBA 2K’s turn to have its already-anointed cover athlete screw things up by changing teams before the game is even out. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reportsthat Cleveland and Boston executed a blockbuster trade todaythat sends Cavs superstar Kyrie Irving to the Celtics in exchange for…

Six Years Later, Bethesda’s Brink Is Suddenly Free-To-Play

Brink was weird. It mashed together multiplayer gunplay with single-player narrative, then spiced up its chunky concoction with parkour and levels set on floating cities (because global warming). It’s also telling that I speak about it in the past tense, because while it continues to exist, you could be forgiven for assuming otherwise. The Bethesda-published,…

Just Angela Merkel, Playin’ Some Farming Simulator

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany and Leader of the Free World, was at Gamescom in Köln earlier today. And she spent some of her time in about the most Gamescom way imaginable. That is the exact same face I make playing Farming Simulator (which incidentally usually has one of the best booths at the show!)…

Don’t Stream And Tweet

Today on Highlight Reel we have keyboard malfunctions, tweeting, dancing cars, high-level Lúcioball play and much more! Watch the video then talk about your favorite highlight in the comments below. Be sure to check out, like, and share the original videos via the links below. Subscribe to Kotaku on YouTube for more! Battlefield 1 –…

Observer Explores the Scary Side Of Cyberpunk

The image above is that of a woman trapped at the moment before her violent death, endlessly repeating the combination to a secret door she’ll never reach. It’s just one small sliver of the sci-fi mind-fuckery that awaits in the Rutger Hauer-voiced cyberpunk horror game Observer. Developed by Bloober Team, the studio behind Layers of…

Cooperative Village-Building Game Is Challenging, But Fun

Have you ever wanted to be a chef or a warrior, but couldn’t decide which one? In Tree of Life, you can be both! Tree of Life is a sandbox RPG where you can build your own village, create your own guild, and fight monsters as you explore the vast open world of Vegonia. You…

Actually, The Shenmue III Trailer Is Fine

Shenmue 3’s first major trailer debuted yesterday, showing off a world of martial arts, beautiful locales, and uncanny facial expressions. For some, including my peers at Kotaku, it was troubling. For me, it was everything I could have asked for. Yu Suzuki’s Shenmue released on the Sega Dreamcast in 1999, revolutionizing how games handle open…

Game Of Thrones Recap Podcast: At Least Daenerys’s Coat Was Cool

Well, that was kind of a bummer. We’re back with a slightly belated special Game of Thrones episode of Kotaku Splitscreen, just in time to talk about the not-very-good sixth episode of season seven, “Beyond The Wall.” We spoil the episode in its entirety, and also occasionally talk about differences between the show and the…

Overwatch Pro Leaves Wedding Reception, Wins Big Match, Goes Back To Reception

Over the weekend, Overwatch pro Joonas “Zappis” Alakurtti had a decision to make: attend a friend’s wedding, or play his first match in Blizzard’s $100,000 Overwatch Contenders tournament. He chose both. Alakurtti is a member of Finnish organization Team Gigantti, a team with a solid backbone (its members previously played Overwatch for major org Ninjas…

Great Horror Games Can Scare You No Matter Where The Camera Is

What’s the greatest horror game of all time? I’m willing to bet that your choice was a game with a first-person, or at least tightly-cropped, perspective. Horror relies on immersion to be effective, and a P.O.V. that puts you in the action will often enhance the experience. A new game from Polish development studio Acid…

Inside The Hilarious Variety Show That Killed 175 Level 1 D&D Characters 

A bloodthirsty janitor, Colonel Mustard, Death, a God-fearing cleric and a dabbing teen had one thing in common at Gen Con last weekend: they were among over a hundred Level 1 characters whom a sadistic dungeon master killed in the span of two hours. Killer Breakfast is a 20-year-long Gen Con tradition that takes the…