Postal 3 Returns to Steam news

Postal 3 is back up on Steam and has received some updates, this new version was created by ZOOM Platform, a game distribution company (think of it as a more indie version of distributors like Steam, EGS, Origin, etc etc).

ZOOM first began distributing Postal 3 back in September 2021, their version was originally the Postal 3 nodrm edition, which contained various bugs we also encountered previously as we also used the nodrm version of P3 as a base for CR, bugs like grenades crashing the game when thrown.

They first began modifying the game with a patch released a few days after their release, which attempted to fix the grenade crash issues, they did this by capping the frame rate to 60fps, speculating that the uncapped frame rate was the cause of the crashes, this wasn’t the case and the patch didn’t actually solve these issues.

2 years later in September 2023, after the game’s removal from Steam, ZOOM released another patch for their copy of the game, including a proper fix for the crashes as well as some other extra editions such as Russian localisation and the Fart Gun weapon (a non-lethal weapon that was exclusive to certain editions of the game, previously not found in the Steam version).

In October, Mike J of Running with Scissors announced that they had been in contact with former Akella owners, who gave them access to parts of Postal 3’s Steam listing, allowing them to bring the ZOOM version of the game to Steam. As the ZOOM version is DRM free it does not have the same issues with the “Act Control” DRM system that caused the game to be delisted from Steam in late 2022.

RWS also announced that the game would have updated store art and a new price tag of $5.99, subject to Valve’s approval of the new build of the game, several achievements have also been removed from the game due to being impossible to earn legitimately, allowing players to finally be able to 100% the game without the use of modifications or cheats, the removed achievements are:

• Bipolar (swap paths 5 times in one playthrough)
• Champ Whisperer (50 kills using Champ)
• Mega Sadist (200 NPCs left alive after being being left crawling on the ground)

The first 2 of these didn’t trigger as intended, while Mega Sadist referred to a mechanic that simply doesn’t exist in the game, NPCs never survive dismemberment or enter a crawling state in vanilla Postal 3.

As of October 13th 2023, Postal 3 has been restored to Steam; However, despite the initial announcement and patch notes for the Steam version listing fixes from the ZOOM version of the game, the Steam version contains no fixes from the ZOOM edition except for the DRM removal and crash fixes.

As the removal of Postal 3 from Steam didn’t impact the development of Catharsis Reborn, neither will its return, but nonetheless as we’re making a Postal 3 mod we thought this was relevant news to share with you all.

(UPDATE: This post was updated on the 20th of October to include corrections, pointing out that the ZOOM content is missing from the Steam patch)