PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds – nihilistic, violent and the perfect game for our era

In this hugely popular Battle Royale-style game, all nuance is gone - it's nothing but rage and death

The island of Erangel is kind of beautiful. It has rolling hills and lush valleys, and there are little villages dotted along the coastlines. Just one thing, though. Everyone here wants to kill you.

This is PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds (PUBG), the hit online multiplayer game that sold more than 24m copies last year. Originally developed as a modification of the military shooting sim, Arma 2, it's now a standalone release on PC and Xbox One and fans are obsessed with it. Inspired by the Hunger Games books and movies, as well as Kinji Fukasaku's cult film Battle Royale, it sees 100 players being dropped on to the island, before searching for useful items such as backpacks, body armour and guns and then trying to kill each other. The last player standing wins.