POSTAL
Intense overall intensityWhat's in it
Constant graphic gunplay against police, soldiers, and civilians with blood, screaming wounded NPCs, and point-blank executions of the downed.
The game centers on a mentally deteriorating man committing mass murder, ending in an asylum sequence and, in the original, an attempt to attack an elementary school full of children.
The player carries out and is required to commit mass murder of law enforcement and bystanders to advance through each level.
Grenades, rockets and napalm fired by the player blow victims apart into burning, dismembered remains, and wounded people who crawl and beg are finished off at point-blank range.
The protagonist mutters and taunts with strong profanity throughout the rampage.
Brief incidental nudity flagged by the storefront amid the rampage imagery.
Intermission text dwells on sadistic violence, and downed enemies plead for help before the player executes them.
An oppressive, industrial-noise atmosphere with a taunting hallucinatory voice and an implied demonic torment create dread rather than jump scares.
Ostriches at a farm level can be shot as part of ordinary combat.
Who can reach your kid
What it is
POSTAL is a 1997 isometric shooter in which the player controls a nameless, mentally unraveling man who goes on an armed rampage through the fictional town of Paradise, Arizona. Each level requires killing a set percentage of armed 'hostiles' — police, soldiers, and other gunmen — before the exit opens, with unarmed civilians free to be gunned down in the crossfire. The tone is bleak and disturbing rather than comedic: bloody gunfire, wounded enemies begging before execution, a flamethrower and napalm, brief nudity and bondage imagery in an asylum finale, strong profanity, and an implied demonic presence driving the killings. A non-playable scene depicts an attempted elementary-school shooting in which the weapons have no effect. There are no purchases and no online or social features.
How it's framed
The game presents the protagonist as a disturbed, possibly demon-tormented spree killer and does not portray his violence as heroic or fun; diary entries, a mocking hallucinatory voice, and the asylum ending frame the rampage as the descent of a sick mind, though the mass killing is still the rewarded core mechanic.
Details
- Developer
- Running With Scissors
- Publisher
- Running With Scissors
- Released
- Nov 14, 1997
Similar games
We built this because we needed it
Balanced Play pools your kids' game time into one budget across Steam, Switch, PlayStation, Xbox and more. We're taking 100 founding families — free for life.
Claim a founding spot →Free for life for the first 100. No card, no spam.