Gaming history is messy. If you look at the late nineties, most developers were trying to be the next Mario or Quake, but one studio in Tucson, Arizona, decided to be the neighborhood's biggest headache instead. That studio was Running With Scissors (RWS). When the first Postal video game series entry dropped in 1997, it wasn't just a game; it was a legislative lightning rod. People didn't just play it—they debated it in Congress.
Honestly, the series is a bit of a paradox. On one hand, you have a franchise that thrives on being as offensive, crude, and technically unstable as humanly possible. On the other, you have a developer that has survived nearly thirty years by being fiercely independent and listening to a fanbase that most mainstream publishers wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole. It’s a weird legacy.
The Gritty, Dark Roots of 1997
The original Postal was a different beast entirely from what the series became. Forget the fart jokes for a second. The 1997 title was an isometric shooter with a genuinely haunting atmosphere. You played as the Postal Dude, a man who believes his house has been evicted and that the town is infected with a madness-inducing gas. Or maybe he’s just lost his mind. The game never quite tells you.
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It was dark. It was hand-drawn. It was depressing.
The gameplay was straightforward: move through levels and "neutralize" a certain percentage of hostiles—which often included anyone in your way. It was this lack of distinction between "enemies" and "innocents" that sent the media into a frenzy. Senator Joe Lieberman became the game’s unintentional marketing manager by constantly citing it as an example of everything wrong with America. RWS CEO Vince Desi famously leaned into the controversy. He knew that in the attention economy, being hated by the right people is just as good as being loved.
Postal 2: The Shift to Satire
If the first game was a psychological horror, Postal 2 was a Looney Tunes cartoon directed by a teenager with a grudge against retail workers. Released in 2003, it moved the series to the Unreal Engine and a first-person perspective. This is the game everyone remembers. This is the game where you can use a cat as a silencer.
Wait. Let’s back up.
One of the most misunderstood things about Postal 2 is that you don't actually have to kill anyone. The game gives you a list of mundane errands: buy milk, return a library book, get a paycheck. You can complete the entire game without firing a shot. It's just that the world is designed to annoy you into violence. The lines are too long. The NPCs are rude. The protesters are firebombing the building. It’s a social experiment disguised as a garbage-tier simulation of Arizona life.
The humor was—and is—relentlessly "equal opportunity." It mocks everyone. Religious extremists, rednecks, Gary Coleman (who actually appeared in the game), and the developers themselves. It’s crude, but there’s a layer of biting satire about American consumerism that often gets lost because, well, someone just urinated on a donut in the game. It’s hard to discuss high-level satire when the mechanics involve "biological warfare" via a full bladder.
The Postal III Disaster and the Recovery
We don't talk about Postal III much. Or rather, RWS doesn't want to.
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Developed primarily by an external Russian team (Akella) during a period of financial instability, Postal III was a mess. It moved to the Source engine, went third-person, and broke. It broke so badly that it was eventually pulled from the RWS website. They basically disowned it. If you ask a hardcore fan about the third game, they’ll probably point you toward Postal 2: Paradise Lost, a massive expansion released over a decade after the original game just to prove that RWS still knew what they were doing.
Then came Postal 4: No Regerts. Yes, it’s spelled that way.
Released from Early Access in 2022, it was a return to the open-hub style of the second game. It brought back the voice of the Dude (this time voiced by Jon St. John of Duke Nukem fame, among others like Rick Hunter and Corey Cruise). It was janky. It was buggy. It was exactly what the fans asked for, even if critics absolutely slaughtered it. It’s one of the few franchises where a "0/10" review from a major outlet is viewed by the community as a badge of honor.
Why Does It Still Exist?
You have to wonder how a Postal video game series survives in a modern climate that is much more sensitive to offensive content than the early 2000s. The answer is simple: authenticity.
Running With Scissors doesn't pretend to be something they aren't. They don't have shareholders to answer to. They don't have a PR department filtering their tweets. When you buy a Postal game, you know you’re getting a buggy, offensive, chaotic sandbox made by people who think "professionalism" is a dirty word. There's a strange respect for that in an industry dominated by polished, soul-less corporate products.
The Spin-offs: Brain Damaged
Interestingly, the most critically acclaimed recent entry isn't even a "mainline" game. Postal: Brain Damaged is a "boomer shooter" developed by Hyperstrange and CreativeForge Games. It takes the humor of the series and applies it to a fast-paced, highly polished movement shooter. It proved that the Postal IP could actually work as a "good" game by traditional standards, provided the level design was tight and the gunplay was responsive. It’s surreal, taking place inside the Dude’s broken psyche, allowing for even weirder environments than a dusty Arizona town.
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Clearing Up the Misconceptions
A lot of people think Postal is just about mass shootings. That’s the surface-level take. In reality, the games are more about the "Uncanny Valley" of American society. They are interactive versions of those days where everything goes wrong—the car won't start, the ATM eats your card, and everyone you meet is a jerk.
- The "Murder Sim" label: In the original game, this was closer to the truth. In the sequels, violence is a choice the player makes.
- The Technical State: These games are rarely "stable." They are built on duct tape and dreams. If you want a smooth 144fps experience without a single clip-through-wall glitch, you're in the wrong place.
- The Ownership: Running With Scissors has owned the rights and self-published for most of their history, allowing them to ignore the "rules" of the gaming industry.
Taking the Next Steps
If you're looking to dive into the Postal video game series, don't just start with the newest one. The history matters here.
First, grab Postal 2 on Steam or GOG. It's frequently on sale for less than the price of a cup of coffee. Install it, try to play through Monday without killing anyone, and see how long you last before the NPCs drive you to madness.
Second, check out the documentary Going Postal. It gives a lot of context on the legal battles and the actual people behind the curtain at RWS. It's easy to forget that behind the crude jokes are actual developers who fought multiple court cases for the right to make these games.
Finally, if you actually want a "good" mechanical game, skip straight to Postal: Brain Damaged. It’s the most accessible entry for someone who likes Doom Eternal or Ultrakill but wants to see what the fuss about the Postal Dude is all about. Just keep your expectations for "sophisticated humor" at floor level. Or maybe slightly below it.
The reality is that Postal isn't for everyone. It’s probably not for most people. But its existence as a middle finger to the polished, safe world of modern gaming is why it remains a fascinating piece of digital history. You don't have to like the jokes to appreciate the tenacity of a studio that refused to go away, no matter how many times the world tried to cancel them.