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Controversial shooter Postal 3 gets FPS remake, dev-approved

Controversial shooter Postal 3 gets FPS remake, dev-approved

Even by the fantastically controversial standards of its predecessors, Post 3 is the unwanted child of the family. The third installment in the notoriously vulgar, graphical shooter series dedicated to crude humor, Postal 3 was developed by Trashmasters and Akella under contract to Postal creator Running With Scissors, was effectively abandoned at the time, and is now considered non-canonical by RWS and fans alike. However, a full conversion mod brings it back as an FPS game, and it’s already turning heads.

Despite all its issues, Postal 3 certainly feels like a fascinating piece of PC gaming history. Postal 3’s messy development exacerbated a buggy, unstable game at launch and prevented Running With Scissors from delivering updates. The third-person perspective, meanwhile, proved an unpopular decision after the FPS game that preceded it. It’s become so infamous that clicking the “Postal 3” link on the developer’s website will instead take you to a YouTube video of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

That’s all set to change, however, with the revival of Postal 3 Unreal. After a long period of silence, ‘ManChrzan’ – best known as the creator of the popular xPatch fix for Postal 2 – has just announced that they’ve been working on Postal 3 Unreal alongside fellow modder ‘KeshaFilm’ and original mod creator ‘MarShil’. “Today we’re excited to share our progress,” ManChrzan writes, “and there’s a lot of it.”

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Postal 3 Unreal isn’t, as you might initially think, a first-person mod for Postal 3, but rather a total conversion of a Postal 2 mod that aims to “create a faithful 1:1 recreation of Postal 3 using the modding tools of the second game.” It even includes the option to recreate the infamous ‘grenade crash’ from the original game. The team says that they are “working hard to push the aging 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 rickety Postal 2.”

In addition to the shift in perspective, Postal 3 Unreal also features new weapons and an open-world environment you can explore between missions or during a special free-roam mode, similar to Postal 2. While Postal 3’s “crazy path” retains its largely linear progression, you’ll also have the freedom to choose your mission order for “a large portion” of the good path. Running With Scissors even shared the mod , calling it “a dramatically more playable version of Postal 3” via X (Twitter).

“Creating a big and ambitious project like Postal 3 Unreal takes a lot of time – our free time – and life is unpredictable,” says ManChrzan. “Everything is done for the Postal community completely free of charge by a small group of passionate modders.” As such, the team asks for your understanding regarding the ongoing development schedule, but you can check the project for the latest updates and future demos.

Running with scissors: "Ever wanted to play a drastically more playable version of Postal 3? Our awesome community has something special for you, check out Postal 3 Unreal!" - Quoted message from Man Chrzan: "It's been about a year since I joined the team working on Postal 3 Unreal, a total conversion of POSTAL 2 with the goal of remaking the third game. Today we're excited to share our progress, and there's a lot of it!"

Note that you’ll need a copy of Postal 2 Complete to play the mod when it comes out. While it shares a similarly grim 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 shortly after it comes out you can grab a copy on sale. Postal 2 is available on Steam for 90% off until Monday 22nd July, at just $0.99 / £0.85. For that price you can’t go wrong, even if it’s just as a curiosity.

Or, here are the best old games you can play on PC today, if you’re looking for something of a more assured quality. Or, instead, dive into the best single-player games for a host of memorable experiences.

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