Even by the fantastically controversial standards of its predecessors, Postal 3 is the unwanted child of the family. The third installment in the notoriously vulgar, graphic shooter series dedicated to gross-out humor, Postal 3 was developed by Trashmasters and Akella under contract from Postal creator Running With Scissors, then effectively disowned, and is now considered to be non-canonical by RWS and fans. Yet a complete conversion mod is bringing it back as an FPS game, and it’s already drawing attention.
For all its many problems, Postal 3 certainly feels like a fascinating piece of PC gaming history. Further exacerbating a buggy, unstable game at launch, the messy development of Postal 3 left Running With Scissors without the ability to provide updates. The third-person perspective, meanwhile, proved an unpopular decision following on from the FPS game that preceded it. In fact, it’s become so notorious that clicking the ‘Postal 3’ link on the developer’s website instead takes you to the YouTube video of Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up.’
That’s about to change, however, with the reemergence of Postal 3 Unreal. Following a long period of silence, ‘ManChrzan’ – best known as the creator of the popular xPatch fix for Postal 2 – has just announced that they have been working on Postal 3 Unreal alongside fellow modders ‘KeshaFilm’ and the mod’s initial creator ‘MarShil.’ “Today, we are excited to share our progress,” ManChrzan writes, “and there’s a lot of it.”
Postal 3 Unreal is not, as you might initially assume, a first-person mod for Postal 3, but rather a total-conversion Postal 2 mod that aims to be “a faithful 1:1 recreation of Postal 3 using the second game’s modding tools.” It even includes the option to recreate the original game’s infamous ‘grenade crash.’ The team says it is “working hard to push the outdated Unreal Engine 2 to its limits and make it look, feel, and play better than both the broken and unfinished Postal 3 and the old and janky Postal 2.”
Along with the shift in perspective, Postal 3 Unreal also features new weapons and an open-world environment that you can explore between missions or during a special free-roam mode, akin to Postal 2. While the ‘insane path’ of Postal 3 retains its largely linear progression, you’ll also have the freedom to choose your mission order for “a big chunk” of the good path. Running With Scissors has even shared the mod, calling it “a drastically more playable version of Postal 3” via X (Twitter).
“Creating a big and ambitious project like Postal 3 Unreal requires a lot of time – our free time – and life is unpredictable,” ManChrzan says. “Everything is done for the Postal community absolutely for free by a small group of passionate modders.” As such, the team asks for understanding with its ongoing development schedule, but you can check out the project for the latest updates and future demos.
Note that you’ll need a copy of Postal 2 Complete to play the mod when it arrives. While it’s of a similarly lurid and off-color style to the rest of the series, Postal 2 can be considered the ‘best’ of the games, and if you happen to be reading this soon after it goes up, you can snag a copy on sale. Postal 2 is 90% off on Steam through Monday July 22, meaning you’ll pay just $0.99 / £0.85. At that price, you can’t go too far wrong with it, if only as a curiosity.
Alternatively, here are the best old games you can play on PC today, if you’re looking for something of more assured quality. Or dive instead into the best single-player games for plenty of memorable experiences.
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