The Postal franchise was made a company called Running With Scissors, starting with the first game in 1997 and now Flesh and Wire for 2027 (30 year anniversary, huh?). It was first launched in 1996 by Vince Desi in Arizona, with Mike J later joining in 2001.

POSTAL 1997

First released on November 14th, 1997 for Windows by Ripcord Games, later being published by other companies for Mac, Linux and Android. It's an isometric, top-down shooter, where you play as a schizophrenic Dude who believes the US Air Force has released a virus on the population, and thus you must be the one to cleanse the Earth. You play through quite a few levels, until the end, where you reach a cutscene where Dude tries to shoot up an elementary school, but it's to no avail, and he suffers a mental breakdown. The game ends with a few shots of Dude in an asylum, with a presumed psychologist talking about his condition as it fades into the credits.

Postal 2 (2003)

Was released on the 14th of April, 2003 for Windows (of course) by Whiptail Interactive, later being released for mac and Linux. You/re featured in first-person as Mr Dude himself, aka Postal 2 Dude, as he completes a set of chores set by both himself and his wife each day. In the original campaign, you play through just the weekdays, but with the addition of Apocalypse Weekend, you get to experience the collapse of Paradise first-hand!

Kewl. I wanna talk about theories.

Postal Dad?

Some people believe that the p1d is p2d's father. The main thing that caused the emergence of this theory was Postal Redux's ending, where Redux Dude (yes, we're classing him separately from p1d) appears in front of a Church.

The Church bell rings loudly, Dude makes his way past the Church and through a field, where the bell fades away and instead is replaced by ambiguous noise - presumably the drone of voices. He stands in front a grave, where the casket is lowered and said voices begin to laugh, the hostile count ticking down from 1 to 0. Once the casket is in the grave, Dude collapses, and the screen is taken over by darkness, before it cuts to the asylum scene once again. However, this is the ending for any difficulty except for nightmare difficulty.

If you play on nightmare difficulty, you'll approach a grave with 3 other people around it: a Priest, a blonde woman, and a clone of Dude in a suit. This is where the dad theory emerges from. Since it's confirmed that The Bitch (as much as I hate to call her that) is blonde and we see another Dude in frame, it's possible that it could be p2d visiting p1d's grave after his death: implying that not only are they different people, but they also have a close relationship, hence the father theory.

Let's think logistically. P1d's journal entries go up to 1997, naturally, and he's said to be 27 years old in the 1996 concept art. If he dies in 1997, that means he was born in either 1969 or 1970. P2d is said to be between his late 30s and early 40s, when the game is set in 2004. Let's give the benefit of the doubt and say p2d is 35, 2004-35 = 1969, meaning he would be born in the same year as his p1d.
Uhhhh I don't think this theory works out.

It's the same lad!

This one's a lot more plausible, given the fact our little age calculation says they're roughly the same age.

A lot of people speculate that p2d is the same guy as p1d, post-recovery, hence the difference in age between the games. It makes sense given the fact they also have the same voice actor, Rick Hunter, and look almost identical. But I think there are other things that could support this theory.

Throughout Postal 2, there are plenty of horror elements planted throughout the game, ABuffWizard made a video on this.
The most obvious horrific aspects of the game come during Apocalypse Weekend, where after p2d has seemingly survived an attempted suicide, he awakes in the hospital. After his head injury, he suffers from reoccurring hallucinations: where people become entities of paint and rust; walls flash will blood and gore; and where Gary Coleman keeps trying to kill you.

Alongside this, if you see the psychiatric ward's cell while p2d's hallucinating, it bares a striking resemblance to the ward p1d is put in at the end of the first game.



It's pretty safe to say that these two could be the same person, pre and post recovery, but still haunted by the same demons.