Postal 4: No Regerts review for PC

Postal 4: No Regerts is a failure to live up to what could?ve been. The Postal series has at no point ever been one that?s regarded as high quality game design, but the first two entries at the very least could?ve been described as ?fun, funny and unique?. The charm of the series has always been that they?re willing to push the envelope on edgy and offensive humor, and the original two games really did do that to the extent they were capable of. Where Postal 4 fails is in its evolution on that idea. There isn?t anything in this game that truly feels like they were trying to move forward with the series; instead just feeling like they took everything about the original games, misunderstood it in redoing it and then failed to deliver it in a running format in modern-ish graphics. It?s unfortunate how bad it is because at every turn, there?s so much opportunity for what could?ve been.

If you view Postal 4 on steam, the 1.0 release of the game has a news entry that reads ?But why, you are no doubt wondering, would we willingly come out of [Early Access] when we know it needs more time in the oven?? we?re leaving early access to help raise more funds to put the finishing touches on the game, see our vision through, and get it onto console.?. There?s some explanation in there that they are using all the funds from sales to finish the game, but it seems they?re purposely leaving early access and calling the game ?released and done? just to boost sales, even though the game is not actually complete in their own eyes. I suppose there?s some credit to the fact that they?re admitting it out loud, but it?s still a questionable tactic.

But don?t worry, they were not lying when they said that the game isn?t complete. Postal 4 is incredibly incomplete feeling and broken in enough ways that playing it on a 2070 Super at 1440p was a struggle. The settings routinely broke when I changed them as well, repeatedly trying to force my resolution back up to 4K when I had set it lower and accepted the change afterward. The settings issues were my first hiccup in the game, but it certainly wasn?t the last. I had it crash in the open world, as the map is separated by several distinct areas that you can walk between, but there?s an abrupt loading stop as you hit a midpoint between them. Postal 4 comes to a complete stop in motion as it loads the area you?re moving to, and half of the times that I hit one such wall, the game just ended up locking in place and needing to be force closed after about 5 minutes.

The humor in-game is the standard form for Postal, and I don?t want to focus on the fact that it?s crude humor that isn?t everyone?s taste, because I liked Postal 2. I don?t think it?s just me having grown up since playing Postal 2 that changed my perception, it really feels like Postal 4 has lost some part of the soul they used to make the terrible jokes they throw out there. A lot of it is recycled from their own humor of the past, but just as much new humor really feels like it falls flat. I think it had to do with the delivery, which may get some forgiveness in a game as old as Postal 2, in the days where weird animation and voice acting was to be expected, but it?s hard to witness still being the case 19 years later when the 4th entry is still doing it.

I have a lot more negative to say about Postal 4: No Regerts, but I think you get the point. It has a lot of potential that was lost, and they swear in their own update entry that ?If there is one thing we?ve proven in the last 26 years, we’re too passionate to know when to stop, so updates and improvements are on the way!?, which I don?t want to doubt them on, but this release makes it really hard not to. Busted in more ways than anything I?ve played in a while, it?s very disappointing as an evolution to the series. Maybe we?ll get the No Man?s Sky of Postal games and in 5 years, this review will look stupid, but where I?m sitting now, at the 1.0 release, I?m not hopeful. At least I liked No Man?s Sky on launch.

Note: Running With Scissors provided us with a Postal 4: No Regerts PC code for review purposes.