Trivia / Postal III

• B-Team Sequel: Instead of being made by POSTAL creator Running With Scissors, it was instead outsourced to Russian developers Akella and Trashmasters, due to RWS' financial issues at the time, and Postal's massive popularity in Russia.
• Content Leak: 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 Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode Two. A later leak occurred in 2024, showcasing two different development builds from the Xbox 360 version of the game (both dated 2009 and 2010, respectively).
• Creator Backlash: 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." To put things into perspective, even the infamous 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. This line of thinking's been reflected with Corey Cruise reprising his role in both Postal 4 and Postal: Brain Damaged, as well as the Dude's outfit from the game being available in the former.
• Creator Killer: 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.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: In November 2022, the game was taken off sale on Steam due to the DRM component finally (and according to Running With Scissors, the quality of the game itself) going kaput, leading to piracy being the only option to play it. However, it's still possible to buy it legally on Zoom Platform, and as of October 2023, the game has been relisted on Steam with the Zoom fixes implemented (though not the bonus in-game content only available on the Zoom version).
• Rereleased for Free: Up until he ran out of them, Mike Jaret would give players product keys for III if they politely asked.
• Troubled Production: 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.
• Vaporware: 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.
• What Could Have Been: Postal III had some content that was cut and some that goes unused in the retail release:
  • 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.
  • The HUD looked different and less complex.◊
  • The Boomstick◊ had a wooden pump.