History Trivia / Postal

* WordOfGay: Played for laughs. When someone commented under a piece of fanart [[https://twitter.com/CCARKUS/status/1268622887499390982?s=20 depicting The Dude as bi]] that he's "probably gotten jiggy with a guy once or twice", the official Running With Scissors Twitter account responded with "[[https://twitter.com/RWSbleeter/status/1269486004198469633?s=20 He is an equal opportunity lunatic.]]"

** The Postal Dude was voiced by Rick Hunter for the first two games. For ''Postal III'', he was replaced by Corey Cruise. While fans frequently assumed this was [[ExecutiveMeddling another cost-saving measure by Akella]], Hunter stated in an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu2i0bd8XnQ interview]] that he was going through personal troubles that killed his motivation to reprise the role at the time. Rick made a return to ''Postal 2'' in the ''Paradise Lost'' expansion. [[spoiler:This doesn't stop Corey Cruise from [[SplitPersonality reprising his role]], however.]] Rick Hunter would be Darrin'd again for the fourth game, this time by Creator/JonStJohn. Unlike the last time he was Darrin'd, however, Hunter had work commitments of his own.

* FictionalCounterpart: While there is a Paradise in southeast Arizona, it's essentially a GhostTown rather than a passive-aggressive residential community as seen in the game.

* WordOfGay: Played for laughs. When someone commented under a piece of fanart [[https://twitter.com/CCARKUS/status/1268622887499390982?s=20 depicting The Dude as bi]] that he's probably "gotten with a guy once or twice", the official Running With Scissors Twitter account responded with "[[https://twitter.com/RWSbleeter/status/1269486004198469633?s=20 He is an equal opportunity lunatic.]]"

** The Postal Dude was voiced by Rick Hunter for the first two games. For ''Postal III'', he was replaced by Corey Cruise. While fans frequently assumed this was [[ExecutiveMeddling another cost-saving measure by Akella]], Hunter stated in an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu2i0bd8XnQ interview]] that he was going through personal troubles that killed his motivation to reprise the role at the time. Rick made a return to ''Postal 2'' in the ''Paradise Lost'' expansion. [[spoiler:This doesn't stop Corey Cruise from [[SplitPersonality reprising his role]], however.]]
** Rick Hunter would be Darrin'd again for the fourth game, this time by Creator/JonStJohn. Unlike the last time he was Darrin'd, however, Hunter had work commitments of his own.

* BannedInChina:
** The first game was banned in Brazil.
** ''Postal 2'' remains banned in New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia[[note]]Physical copies only, one can still buy the game off Steam[[/note]], France and Germany. The game was also once banned in Sweden, though this has since been overturned.
* ContentLeak: An early build of ''Postal III'', specifically the one shown in 2007, was leaked in June 2020, containing the original test map and Dude model shown in that demo, alongside a litany of unused models, textures, in-development maps, and ''the game's original design documents''. The leak also included files for ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2 '' and ''[[VideoGame/HalfLife2 Half-Life 2: Episode Two]]''
* CreatorBacklash: RWS has all but disowned the third game, dubbed it "Akella's ''Postal'' Spin off" and/or ''Russian Postal'', and has pulled it from its store. Heck, it's even to the point where, despite it still being on Steam, the full collection of every ''Postal'' is called "Every POSTAL (But That One)," and the description of the collection refers to ''[=III=]'' as "The Third Which Must Not Be Named." Put things into perspective, even the Uwe Boll movie is in the collection. That said, however, it ''is'' included in the 20th Anniversary collection, saying that even though ''Postal III'' was definitely not up to a high level of quality, it was still worth adding in for the anniversary celebration of ''Postal'' as a whole.
* CreatorKiller:
** The feature film from Creator/UweBoll was one of his final projects that video game companies allowed to go forward; the controversy over the portrayal of Al-Qaeda in that film (which actually did not get much attention from the US government or UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush, who got a TakeThat in the film at the end), along with his then-ongoing string of [[VideoGameMoviesSuck crappy game movies]] that scored below 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, were all NotScreenedForCritics, were mostly {{Box Office Bomb}}s, and had dealt crippling damage to the games the films were based off, resulted in Boll being essentially blacklisted by the gaming industry as a whole, which shot down attempts by Boll to direct the ''Film/{{WarCraft|2016}}'' film and a possible ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' film. All of Boll's video game movies after 2009 are sequels to movies he already did. He'd also been a C-list director since, before retiring from filmmaking entirely in 2016. ''Postal: The Movie'' also led to RWS doing their own TakeThat to Boll in the third game.
** The critical and commercial failure of ''Postal III'' all but killed Akella, as they were already on the verge of bankruptcy after the Russian economy went in dire-straits around the Great Recession and amid multiple lawsuits in 2012. The game also killed developer Trashmasters, as they were closed with parent Akella shortly afterwards.

* OldShame: ''Postal III'' has become this for RWS. See TroubledProduction.
* TheOtherDarrin: The Postal Dude was voiced by Rick Hunter for the first two games. For ''Postal III'', he was replaced by Corey Cruise. While fans frequently assumed this was [[ExecutiveMeddling another cost-saving measure by Akella]], Hunter stated in an [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu2i0bd8XnQ interview]] that he was going through personal troubles that killed his motivation to reprise the role at the time. Rick made a return to ''Postal 2'' in the ''Paradise Lost'' expansion. [[spoiler:This doesn't stop Corey Cruise from [[SplitPersonality reprising his role]], however.]]

* PosthumousCredit: [[Series/DiffrentStrokes Gary Coleman]] returns in the ''Paradise Lost'' expansion, released in 2015. The actor himself passed away in 2010, so all his lines are ones that had already been recorded for the original game and its first expansion, and actual plot dialogue is delivered by a different character, the "exceptionally tall midget" Big [=McWillis=].
* PromotedFanboy: [=YouTuber=] WebVideo/Civvie11, prominently known for several Postal related videos, appears as an in-game radio caller and as a NPC in ''No Regerts''.
** In a similar fashion, the QA team for ''Postal 4'' is comprised of longtime fans of the series, including two of ''Catharsis Reborn's'' developers.
* RoleReprise: Jim Halstead voices Uncle Dave again in ''Paradise Lost'' after ''III'' made him an individual character.
* TributeToFido: Champ is named for lead designer Vince Desi's dog, who later died of cancer in 2011. The 2015 ExpansionPack ''Paradise Lost'', whose plot involves searching for him, is dedicated to his memory.
* TroubledProduction: ''Postal III'' very much so. According to the RWS website, things were going well with Akella at first until the Russian economy took a downturn, forcing Akella to lay off their A-team that was working on the game. RWS admitted they should've pulled the plug at that point since they knew there was no way Akella's B-team Trashmasters could possibly finish development to their standards, but they soldiered on anyways and Akella took more cost-cutting measures due to running low on funds. To top it off RWS were unable to oversee the last 12 months of development on the game, so it's no surprise it ultimately turned out the way it did. Thanks to the critical and commercial failure of the game, RWS has removed the game from their website's online store and refuses to even consider it canon anymore.
** ''4'' would also be hit by this with the advent of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic in 2020, but on a much smaller scale than ''III'' since RWS would be working remotely by that point.
* UnintentionalPeriodPiece:
** ''Postal 2'', which came out in early 2003, is a unique case of TheNineties spilling over into [[TurnOfTheMillennium the following decade]]. It includes parodies of the 1993 Waco siege, a cameo by Gary Coleman AsHimself, and a depiction of the controversy over [[MurderSimulators violent video games]] panic of the 90's, most notably in that it makes TakeThat[=s=] at then-Senator Joe Liebermann, who's relevance had quickly faded by the 2000s. This is mixed with many RippedFromTheHeadlines references to UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror, including terrorists who all [[{{Expy}} look like]] UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden, and ''Apocalypse Weekend'' adding the National Guard who echo the more controversial quotes and conduct of the early days of the Iraq invasion. It's all so heavy-handed that it can [[PoesLaw be seen as a parody]] of America's early days of vulnerable yet intensely-xenophobic paranoia following the attacks.
*** The ''Paradise Lost'' expansion, released in April 2015, features two elements strongly dated to its release date. The arcade game "Equality Simulator" is clearly a jab at "social justice warriors", when the controversy surrounding ''VideoGame/DepressionQuest'' was still recent. The game also features a cameo from controversial journalist Milo Yiannopolous, just two years before he wound up losing support due to his statements on pedophilia.
** ''Postal III'', in turn, had its delayed development result in an odd case of it being a period piece to the late 2000s, almost specifically to 2008, despite having come out [[TheNewTens in 2011]]. The political atmosphere is still soundly grounded in twilight of the Bush era - "border patrol" along the Mexican border involves keeping ''Americans'' from escaping to get away from the recession, the MoralGuardians are now a faction of crazed "Hockey Moms" [[EverythingIsRacist looking for excuses to be offended]] and [[WesternTerrorists getting really violent]] once they've found one. A dead-ringer of UsefulNotes/SarahPalin is featured, and Osama bin Laden as a member of the BigBadDuumvirate - all at a point when in the real world we were almost halfway through the Presidency of UsefulNotes/BarackObama. The celebrity (or "celebrity") cameos are all likewise dated as well, including Jennifer Walcott (''Playboy'' Playmate of the Year, 2001), [[Music/VillagePeople Randy Jones]], Creator/UweBoll, and then-president of Venezuela Hugo Chavez.
** ''No Regerts'' is already serving as one for the early days of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic. Several missions and jokes in the game revolve around the shortage of toilet paper, a result of the mass panic shopping that took place during the spring of 2020, and several NPCs in the game's world start wearing masks on Tuesday. The game even has a COVID equivalent in the form of the "Pigeonavirus".
* {{Vaporware}}:
** ''Postal III'' was announced in 2006, with very few screenshots or videos being released since then and the official website being mostly filler. In October 2011, the game finally appeared on Steam's store under "Coming Soon" with the release scheduled for December. The exact date was finally revealed as December 20th, although the game was only available from the Running With Scissors online shop until February 2012.
** The ''Postal 2'' DLC ''Paradise Lost'' was announced in mid-2014 and was slated for a fall release that same year. It was then delayed to an unspecified date, finally being [[https://steamcommunity.com/games/POSTAL2/announcements/detail/190615233704658436 released on April 17th, 2015]].

* WhatCouldHaveBeen:
** ''Postal 2'' had some things that were either cut from the game or scrapped. Of course since the game is medium aware, it has a graveyard for them. A list of these things are:
*** A meat gun, brought back in the ''A Week In Paradise'' mod.
*** A staple gun, also brought back in ''AWP''.
*** A rebar gun.
*** Fire seeking cats.
*** Fetuses with guns, though the idea is recycled for the monkeys from ''Paradise Lost''.
*** Rape clowns.
*** "Teen sniper". The name of an arcade machine in the game, possibly a planned mini-game or an enemy. This too was brought back in ''AWP''.
*** Pigeons. Referenced twice over, with the Pigeon Mission (that the game skips over entirely due to "no budget" for it) in ''Apocalypse Weekend'', and a fake DLC pack for ''Paradise Lost'' that promises to re-add it.
*** The Dude's father as a zombie, to quote the grave: "Zombie Dad". Yet another thing brought back in ''AWP''.
*** And last but not least: The game's original plot, before it became what it is today.
*** [[http://301-1.ru/gen-mems/img_mems/90fad2cabf4f0f4ef7fb3381eb04f021.jpg The Postal Dude was thinner and looked different than in the retail version.]] This model can be brought back through a mod and also used as a ragdoll for VideoGame/GarrysMod.
*** Several weapons, while functionally identical to those in the released game, had very different models before the game's release, such as the pistol being modeled after the Colt 1911 before settling on the Desert Eagle, the shotgun being a rusty SPAS-12 rather than a Remington 870, or the M16 appearing with [[GunPorn all sorts of extra attachments]] (and sounding like a [[GatlingGood chaingun]]). The original shotgun would later make its way into ''Eternal Damnation'', and in turn was rolled back into the main game with post-Steam release updates as the "Beta Shotgun", a separate weapon which has to be reloaded after six shells but is noticeably more powerful than the basic shotgun.
*** The layout of Paradise seemed to have been mostly finalized by the time of the alpha in 2002, but one major change was the starting point - the Postal Dude apparently lived in an actual house that happened to have a trailer near it, rather than living in the trailer itself. A [[https://youtu.be/qLEgXoduN1Y?t=80 look at the map]] from the E3 2002 presentation also shows some of the areas were at least moved around, notably the RWS offices being in the south-central portion of the map rather than near the northeast corner.
*** Befitting the game's tone, when it was updated in 2013 to add achievements, there were supposed to be 69 in all. However, only 68 actually shipped with the update, as the 69th - which would have been unlocked for playing the game on Linux - didn't work properly for some reason.
** ''Postal III'' also had some content that was cut and some that goes unused in the retail release:
*** [[http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/postal/images/1/1d/Postal_III_beta_dude.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20160917191459 The Postal Dude looked almost the same as in the previous game]] and was going to have the same haircut like the ''2002 Postal 2 beta''. Later, it got replaced with a more detailed model, but the model itself can be brought back through mods.
*** [[http://s019.radikal.ru/i634/1205/7d/f115392919ec.jpg The HUD looked different and less complex.]]
*** [[http://i057.radikal.ru/1205/fe/c741add5c8f2.jpg The Boomstick]] had a wooden pump.
*** And [[http://postal.wikia.com/wiki/Postal_III_Cut/Unfinished_Content here's the Wikia page that shows the unused/cut content from the game itself.]]
** Running With Scissors seriously considered bringing back Corey Cruise for ''Postal 4'', but due to their negative experiences while working on ''Postal III'', it was decided that a different direction should be taken with The Dude's voice, leading to Jon St. John's casting. That said, though, they've also stated that Cruise does have a role in the game, just not as the Postal Dude.
*** Hunter was also in the running to reprise the role, with him having recorded some dialogue for the Monday errands, but scheduling conflicts with his radio career led to him dropping out.

* ActorAllusion: Zack Ward's work on the ''Postal'' film adaptation (not to mention the majority of his filmography and other acting work, in particular ''Film/AChristmasStory'') gets acknowledged in the ''Postal 2'' expansion pack ''Paradise Lost''.
* ArchivedAppearance: Since Gary Coleman had died by the time of the sequel, some of his dialogue from the first game is reused.

* CreatorBacklash: RWS has all but disowned the third game, dubbed it "Akella's ''Postal'' Spin off" and/or ''Russian Postal'', and has pulled it from its store. Heck, it's even to the point where, despite it still being on Steam, the full collection of every ''Postal'' is called "Every POSTAL (But That One)," and the description of the collection refers to ''[=III=]'' as "The Third Which Must Not Be Named." Put things into perspective, even the Uwe Boll movie is in the collection.

** The critical and commercial failure of ''Postal III'' all but killed developer and publisher Akella, as they were already on the verge of bankruptcy after the Russian economy went in dire-straits around the Great Recession and amid multiple lawsuits in 2012. The game also killed developer Trashmasters, as they were closed with parent Akella shortly afterwards.
* {{Defictionalization}}: [[http://www.postalgames.com/pd-krotchy-doll-now-talks.cfm You can actually buy Krotchy.]]

** ''4'' would also be hit by this with the advent of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic in 2020, but on a much smaller scale than ''III'' since RWS was working remotely by that point.

*** The ''Paradise Lost'' expansion, released in 2015, features two elements strongly dated to its release date. The arcade game "Equality Simulator" is clearly a jab at "social justice warriors", when the controversy surrounding ''VideoGame/DepressionQuest'' was still recent. The game also features a cameo from controversial journalist Milo Yiannopolous, just two years before he wound up losing support due to his statements on pedophilia.

** ''No Regerts'' is already serving as one for the early days of the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic. Several missions in the game revolve around the shortage of toilet paper, a result of the mass panic shopping that took place during the spring of 2020.

** The development team seriously considered bringing back Corey Cruise for ''Postal 4'', but due to the bad experience of the third game's development it was decided that a different direction should be taken with The Dude's voice, leading to Jon St. John's casting. Hunter was also in the running to reprise the role, with him having recorded some dialogue for the Monday errands, but scheduling conflicts with his radio career led to him dropping out.

* ContentLeak: An early build of ''Postal III'', specifically the one shown in 2007, was leaked in 2020, containing the original test map and Dude model shown in that demo. The leak also included files for ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2 '' and ''[[VideoGame/HalfLife2 Half-Life 2: Episode Two]]''

** ''Postal 2'', which came out in early 2003, is a unique case of TheNineties spilling over into [[TurnOfTheMillennium the following decade]]. It includes parodies of the Waco siege (which happened a full decade before the game came out), a cameo by Gary Coleman AsHimself (still a noticeable figure at the time, but most of the jokes about his presence reference his child-star days, which even through reruns would have been more relevant in the '90s), and a noticeably-dated depiction of the controversy over [[MurderSimulators violent video games]] (which was a big deal in the mid-'90s, but by 1999 had slowly dropped off to just a pet crusade for a handful figures), most notably in that it makes ''several'' TakeThat[=s=] at then-Senator Joe Liebermann (one of the biggest names calling for a crackdown on violent video games in the '90s, though while he remained a Senator for another full decade after the game's release, by 2003 he had long since dropped the subject), while Jack Thompson (another big name in the {{Moral Guardian|s}} camp from the 2000s, though noteworthy less for being good at effecting change or even rallying those who still agreed with his message and more for simply embarrassing himself whenever he discussed the subject) never gets so much as a mention, even in the expansion that released in 2005, right at the height of his relevance surrounding ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas''[='=] "Hot Coffee" scandal. Then with the subtlety of a brick through a window, the game hits you with several [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror al-Qaeda]] references, including terrorists who all [[{{Expy}} look like]] UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden randomly attacking the church on Tuesday, a patch adding a sewer complex filled with more terrorists, and ''Apocalypse Weekend'' adding a full training camp within easy walking distance of Paradise, with the National Guard, when they invade the camp, echoing several of the more controversial quotes and conduct of the early days of the Iraq invasion, including arresting the player character as an enemy combatant without trial, referencing the "Axis of Evil", and claiming that they won't kill anyone who surrenders peacefully (and if they do it was "probably an accident") - it's all so heavy-handed that, a decade or so later, it can [[PoesLaw almost be seen as a parody]] of America's early days of vulnerable yet intensely-xenophobic paranoia following the attacks.
** ''Postal III'', in turn, had its delayed development result in an odd case of it being a period piece to the late 2000s, almost specifically to 2008, despite having come out [[TheNewTens in 2011]]. The political atmosphere is still soundly grounded in twilight of the Bush era - "border patrol" along the Mexican border involves keeping ''Americans'' from escaping to get away from the recession,[[note]]and the only ones trying to go the other way are [[PaperThinDisguise badly-disguised terrorists]] - ironically mirroring a later controversy that would surround the Presidential campaign and eventual election of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump five years later[[/note]] the moral guardians are now a faction of crazed "Hockey Moms" [[EverythingIsRacist looking for excuses to be offended]] and [[WesternTerrorists getting really violent]] once they've found one (mirroring how the "moral crusade" had fallen to ineffectual groups of random parents who rarely accomplished more than [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity pointing potential customers to something that might be worth their time]] - half a decade later, this sort of group would consist of a younger and more diverse group of twenty-somethings that, even at least charitable, would be mocked for being overly-pacifistic and whiny, but would probably also [[StrawmanHasAPoint at least have something resembling a valid point]]) who are lead by a dead-ringer for UsefulNotes/SarahPalin (who by 2009 was only still relevant due to dumb statements that [[MisBlamed probably actually came from]] a ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' skit), and Osama bin Laden as a member of the BigBadDuumvirate (the game coming out in that period where al-Qaeda was on the backslide of relevance, with Osama himself having been killed about seven months before the game came out, but ISIS hadn't yet stepped up to prove even worse than they were) - all at a point when in the real world we were almost halfway through the Presidency of UsefulNotes/BarackObama. The celebrity (or "celebrity") cameos are all likewise dated as well, including Jennifer Walcott (''Playboy'' Playmate of the Year... in '''2001'''), [[Music/VillagePeople Randy Jones]] (whose last solo outing at the time was in 2007, and whose next one wouldn't be until 2017), Creator/UweBoll (over his poor video-game movie adaptations, more specifically his ''Postal'' movie, when that came out in 2007 and his video game adaptations in general had all but fallen off afterwards, before he would eventually retire from filmmaking entirely in 2016 in order to pursue a career as a restaurateur in Vancouver, which he's doing successfully), and then-president of Venezuela Hugo Chavez (best-known, at least for a certain value of "known", for his constant posturing trying to place himself and Venezuela as the number-one enemy of America, who [[UnknownRival never cared]] right up to his death in 2013).

* ContentLeak: An early build of ''Postal III'', specifically the one shown in 2007, was leaked in 2020, containing the original test map and Dude model shown in that demo. The leak also included files for ''[[VideoGame/TeamFortress2]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/HalfLife2 Half-Life 2: Episode Two]]''

** ''4'' would also be hit by this with the advent of the ]]UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic]] in 2020, but on a much smaller scale than ''III'' since RWS was working remotely by that point.

* AscendedFanboy: [=YouTuber=] WebVideo/Civvie11, prominently known for several Postal related videos, appears as an in-game radio caller and as a NPC in ''No Regerts''.

* WikiRule: [[http://postal.wikia.com/wiki/Postal_Wiki The series has its own wiki]], [[WikiMagic which could use some magic]].

** The development team seriously considered bringing back Corey Cruise for ''Postal 4'', but due to the bad experience of the third game's development it was decided that a different direction should be taken with The Dude's voice, leading to Jon St. John's casting. Hunter was also in the running to reprise the role, with him having recorded some dialogue for the Monday errands, but scheduling conflicts with his radio career led to him dropping out.

* CreatorBacklash: RWS has all but disowned the third game, dubbed it "Akella's ''Postal'' Spin off" and/or ''Russian Postal'', and has pulled it from its store.

* AscendedFanboy: [=YouTuber=] WebVideo/Civvie11, prominently known for several Postal related videos, appears as an in-game radio caller and as a NPC in No Regerts.

** ''Postal 2'', which came out in early 2003, is a unique case of TheNineties spilling over into [[TurnOfTheMillennium the following decade]]. It includes parodies of the Waco siege (which happened a full decade before the game came out), a cameo by Gary Coleman AsHimself (still a noticeable figure at the time, but most of the jokes about his presence reference his child-star days, which even through reruns would have been more relevant in the '90s), and a noticeably-dated depiction of the controversy over [[MurderSimulators violent video games]] (which was a big deal in the mid-'90s, but by 1999 had slowly dropped off to just a pet crusade for a handful figures), most notably in that it makes ''several'' TakeThat[=s=] at then-Senator Joe Liebermann (one of the biggest names calling for a crackdown on violent video games in the '90s, though while he remained a Senator for another full decade after the game's release, by 2003 he had long since dropped the subject), while Jack Thompson (another big name in the {{Moral Guardian|s}} camp from the 2000s, though not as noteworthy since he wasn't good at effecting change or even rallying those who still agreed with his message so much as simply embarrassing himself) never gets so much as a mention, even in the expansion that released at the height of his relevance surrounding ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas''[='=] "Hot Coffee" scandal. Then with the subtlety of a brick through a window, the game hits you with several [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror al-Qaeda]] references, including terrorists who all [[{{Expy}} look like]] UsefulNotes/OsamaBinLaden randomly attacking the church on Tuesday, a patch adding a sewer complex filled with more terrorists, and ''Apocalypse Weekend'' adding a full training camp within easy walking distance of Paradise, with the National Guard in the latter echoing several of the more controversial quotes and conduct of the early days of the Iraq invasion, including arresting the player character as an enemy combatant without trial, referencing the "Axis of Evil", and claiming that they won't kill anyone who surrenders peacefully (and if they do it was "probably an accident") - it's all so heavy-handed that, a decade or so later, it can [[PoesLaw almost be seen as a parody]] of America's early days of vulnerable yet intensely-xenophobic paranoia following the attacks.
** ''Postal III'', in turn, had its delayed development result in an odd case of it being a period piece to the late 2000s, almost specifically to 2008, despite having come out [[TheNewTens in 2011]]. The political atmosphere is still soundly grounded in twilight of the Bush era - "border patrol" along the Mexican border involves keeping ''Americans'' from escaping to get away from the recession,[[note]]and the only ones trying to go the other way are [[PaperThinDisguise badly-disguised terrorists]] - ironically mirroring a later controversy that would surround the Presidential campaign and eventual election of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump five years later[[/note]] the moral guardians are now a faction of crazed "Hockey Moms" [[EverythingIsRacist looking for excuses to be offended]] and [[WesternTerrorists getting really violent]] once they've found one (mirroring how the "moral crusade" had fallen to ineffectual groups of random parents who rarely accomplished more than [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity pointing potential customers to something that might be worth their time]] - half a decade later, this sort of group would consist of a younger and more diverse group of twenty-somethings that, even at least charitable, would be mocked for being overly-pacifistic and whiny, but would probably also [[StrawmanHasAPoint at least have a valid point]]) who are lead by a dead-ringer for UsefulNotes/SarahPalin (who by 2009 was only still relevant due to dumb statements that [[MisBlamed probably actually came from]] a ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' skit), and Osama bin Laden as a member of the BigBadDuumvirate (the game coming out in that period where al-Qaeda was on the backslide of relevance, with Osama himself having been killed about seven months before the game came out, but ISIS hadn't yet stepped up to prove even worse than they were) - all at a point when in the real world we were almost halfway through the Presidency of UsefulNotes/BarackObama. The celebrity (or "celebrity") cameos are all likewise dated as well, including Jennifer Walcott (''Playboy'' Playmate of the Year... in '''2001'''), [[Music/VillagePeople Randy Jones]] (whose last solo outing at the time was in 2007, and whose next one wouldn't be until 2017), Creator/UweBoll (over his poor video-game movie adaptations, more specifically his ''Postal'' movie, when that came out in 2007 and his video game adaptations in general had all but fallen off afterwards, before he would eventually retire from filmmaking entirely in 2016 in order to pursue a career as a restaurateur in Vancouver, which he's doing successfully), and then-president of Venezuela Hugo Chavez (best-known, at least for a certain value of "known", for his constant posturing trying to place himself and Venezuela as the number-one enemy of America, who [[UnknownRival never cared]] right up to his death in 2013).

* CreatorKiller: The feature film from Creator/UweBoll was one of his final projects that video game companies allowed to go forward; the controversy over the portrayal of Al-Qaeda in that film (which actually did not get much attention from the US government or UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush, who got a TakeThat in the film at the end), along with his then-ongoing string of [[VideoGameMoviesSuck crappy game movies]] that scored below 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, were all NotScreenedForCritics, were mostly {{Box Office Bomb}}s, and had dealt crippling damage to the games the films were based off, resulted in Boll being essentially blacklisted by the gaming industry as a whole, which shot down attempts by Boll to direct the ''Film/{{WarCraft|2016}}'' film and a possible ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' film. All of Boll's video game movies after 2009 are sequels to movies he already did. He'd also been a C-list director since, before retiring from filmmaking entirely in 2016. ''Postal: The Movie'' also led to RWS doing their own TakeThat to Boll in the third game.

* FictionalCounterpart: While there is a Paradise in southeast Arizona, it's essentially a GhostTown rather than a passive-aggresive residential community as seen in the game.

** ''Postal III'', in turn, had its delayed development result in an odd case of it being a period piece to the late 2000s, almost specifically to 2008, despite having come out [[TheNewTens in 2011]]. The political atmosphere is still soundly grounded in twilight of the Bush era - "border patrol" along the Mexican border involves keeping ''Americans'' from escaping to get away from the recession,[[note]]and the only ones trying to go the other way are [[PaperThinDisguise badly-disguised terrorists]] - ironically mirroring a later controversy that would surround the Presidential campaign and eventual election of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump five years later[[/note]] the moral guardians are now a faction of crazed "Hockey Moms" [[EverythingIsRacist looking for excuses to be offended]] and [[WesternTerrorists getting really violent]] once they've found one (mirroring how the "moral crusade" had fallen to ineffectual groups of random parents who rarely accomplished more than [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity pointing potential customers to something that might be worth their time]] - half a decade later, this sort of group would consist of a younger and more diverse group of twenty-somethings that, even at least charitable, would be mocked for being overly-pacifistic and whiny, but would probably also [[StrawmanHasAPoint at least have a valid point]]) who are lead by a dead-ringer for UsefulNotes/SarahPalin (who by 2009 was only still relevant due to dumb statements that [[MisBlamed probably actually came from]] a ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' skit), and Osama bin Laden as a member of the BigBadDuumvirate (the game coming out in that period where al-Qaeda was on the backslide of relevance, with Osama himself having been killed about seven months before the game came out, but ISIS hadn't yet stepped up to prove even worse than they were) - all at a point when in the real world we were almost halfway through the Presidency of UsefulNotes/BarackObama. The celebrity (or "celebrity") cameos are all likewise dated as well, including Jennifer Walcott (''Playboy'' Playmate of the Year... in '''2001'''), [[Music/VillagePeople Randy Jones]] (whose last solo outing at the time was in 2007, and whose next one wouldn't be until 2017), Uwe Boll (over his poor video-game movie adaptations, more specifically his ''Postal'' movie, when that came out in 2007 and his video game adaptations in general had all but fallen off afterwards, before he would eventually retire from filmmaking entirely in 2016 in order to pursue a career as a restaurateur in Vancouver, which he's doing well successfully), and then-Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez (best-known, at least for a certain value of "known" in-and-outside South America, for his constant posturing trying to place himself and Venezuela as the number-one enemy of America, who [[UnknownRival never cared]] right up to his death in 2013).
* {{Vaporware}}: ''Postal III'' was announced in 2006, with very few screenshots or videos being released since then and the official website being mostly filler. In October 2011, the game finally appeared on Steam's store under "Coming Soon" with the release scheduled for December. The exact date was finally revealed as December 20th, although the game was only available from the Running With Scissors online shop until February 2012.

* CreatorKiller: The feature film from Uwe Boll was one of his final projects that video game companies allowed to go forward; the controversy over the portrayal of Al-Qaeda in that film (which actually did not get much attention from the US government or UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush, who got a TakeThat in the film at the end), along with his then-ongoing string of [[VideoGameMoviesSuck crappy game movies]] that scored below 10% on Rotten Tomatoes, were all NotScreenedForCritics, were mostly {{Box Office Bomb}}s, and had dealt crippling damage to the games the films were based off, resulted in Boll being essentially blacklisted by the gaming industry as a whole, which shot down attempts by Boll to direct the ''Film/{{WarCraft|2016}}'' film and a possible ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' film. All of Boll's video game movies after 2009 are sequels to movies he already did. He'd also been a C-list director since, before retiring from filmmaking entirely in 2016. ''Postal: The Movie'' also led to RWS doing their own TakeThat to Boll in the third game.

* CreatorBacklash: RWS has all but disowned the third game, dubbed it "Akella's ''Postal'' Spin off", and has pulled it from its store.

* PosthumousCredit: Creator/GaryColeman returns in the ''Paradise Lost'' expansion, released in 2015. The actor himself passed away in 2010, so all his lines are ones that had already been recorded for the original game and its first expansion, and actual plot dialogue is delivered by a different character, the "exceptionally tall midget" Big [=McWillis=].

* TroubledProduction: ''Postal III'' very much so. According to the RWS website, things were going well with Akella at first until the Russian economy took a downturn, forcing Akella to lay off their A-team that was working on the game. RWS admitted they should've pulled the plug at that point since they knew there was no way Akella's B-team could possibly finish development to their standards, but they soldiered on anyways and Akella took more cost-cutting measures due to running low on funds. To top it off RWS were unable to oversee the last 12 months of development on the game, so it's no surprise it ultimately turned out the way it did. Thanks to the critical and commercial failure of the game, RWS has removed the game from their website's online store and refuses to even consider it canon anymore.

** ''Postal III'', in turn, had its delayed development result in an odd case of it being a period piece to the late 2000s, almost specifically to 2008, despite having come out [[TheNewTens in 2011]]. The political atmosphere is still soundly grounded in twilight of the Bush era - "border patrol" along the Mexican border involves keeping ''Americans'' from escaping to get away from the recession,[[note]]and the only ones trying to go the other way are [[PaperThinDisguise badly-disguised terrorists]] - ironically mirroring a later controversy that would surround the Presidential campaign and eventual election of UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump five years later[[/note]] the moral guardians are now a faction of crazed "Hockey Moms" [[EverythingIsRacist looking for excuses to be offended]] and [[WesternTerrorists getting really violent]] once they've found one (mirroring how the "moral crusade" had fallen to ineffectual groups of random parents who rarely accomplished more than [[NoSuchThingAsBadPublicity pointing potential customers to something that might be worth their time]] - half a decade later, this sort of group would consist of a younger and more diverse group of twenty-somethings that, even at least charitable, would be mocked for being overly-pacifistic and whiny, but would probably also [[StrawmanHasAPoint at least have a valid point]]) who are lead by a dead-ringer for UsefulNotes/SarahPalin (who by 2009 was only still relevant due to dumb statements that [[MisBlamed probably actually came from]] a ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' skit), and Osama bin Laden as a member of the BigBadDuumvirate (the game coming out in that period where al-Qaeda was on the backslide of relevance, with Osama himself having been killed about seven months before the game came out, but ISIS hadn't yet stepped up to prove even worse than they were) - all at a point when in the real world we were almost halfway through the Presidency of UsefulNotes/BarackObama. The celebrity (or "celebrity") cameos are all likewise dated as well, including Jennifer Walcott (''Playboy'' Playmate of the Year... in 200''1''), [[Music/VillagePeople Randy Jones]] (whose last solo outing at the time was in 2007, and whose next one wouldn't be until 2017), Uwe Boll (over his poor video-game movie adaptations, more specifically his ''Postal'' movie, when that came out in 2007 and his video game adaptations in general had all but fallen off afterwards, before he would eventually retire from filmmaking entirely in 2016), and then-Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez (best-known, at least for a certain value of "known", for his constant posturing trying to place himself and Venezuela as the number-one enemy of America, who [[UnknownRival never cared]] right up to his death in 2013).

** The critical and commercial failure of ''Postal III'' all but killed developer and publisher Akella, as they were already on the verge of bankruptcy after the Russian economy went in dire-straits around the Great Recession and amid
multiple lawsuits in 2012. The game also killed developer Trashmasters, as they were closed with parent Akella shortly afterwards.

** The development team seriously considered bringing back Corey Cruise for ''Postal 4'', but due to the bad experience of the third game's development it was decided that a different direction should be taken with The Dude's voice, leading to Jon St. John's casting.

** The development team seriously considered bringing back Corey Cruise for ''Postal 4'', but due to the bad experience of the third games development it was decided that a different direction should be taken with The Dude's voice, leading to Jon St. John's casting.