Every POSTAL game, ranked
All 2 POSTAL games we hold, spanning 1997 to 2003: 2 ranked by the GamingPickz Score and plotted below, the rest listed in release order so nothing in the series is missing. Together they carry 151,757 Steam reviews.
Where to start
- For the best-reviewed: Postal 2 (GamingPickz Score 7.8), the highest-rated entry we can score.
- For canon order: begin with POSTAL (1997) and follow the release-order timeline below.
The POSTAL games on the grid
Compare the whole catalogueThe same 2 games, plotted rather than listed. The two axes below are the ones the ranking is built from, so a game sitting high and right is a game the formula placed near the top. Change either axis to see the field a different way. Where we hold a publisher wordmark, the game is drawn as its mark rather than a dot.
2 games have both
Axes are fitted to these 2 games rather than the full 0 to 100 scale, because a filtered list shares a narrow band and would otherwise sit in one corner. End values are marked. A point on the left edge is the lowest of thesegames, not a low score.
Players. The share of Steam reviews marked positive, pulled toward the catalogue average in proportion to how few reviews stand behind it. A game with 200 reviews moves a long way toward the average; one with 200,000 barely moves at all. Without this a title sitting at 100 percent on nine reviews outranks Half-Life 2 at 98 percent on 278,000.
Popularity. A blend of two things that are not the same. Audience is how many people wrote a Steam review, which is a floor on how many played it. Reach is how many language editions of Wikipedia document the game, which is cultural footprint rather than sales. A game can score high on one and low on the other: a huge free-to-play title has audience without reach, and a landmark console exclusive has reach without a Steam audience at all. Where both exist they are averaged; where only one does, that one carries it.
- PC
Every point links to that game's entry. The value map and the reception map are fixed views of the same data.
How positions are decided
No paid placement, no favouritism, live third-party data
- Placed by the published method, not by us. Every coordinate is computed from the axis definitions and weights printed on this site. Nobody moves a point. See the axes.
- Nothing here is paid for. No sponsored placements, no promoted slots, no arrangement of any kind affects a position. If that ever changes it will be labelled and sit outside the ranking.
- No favouritism, including our own. The 16 games we have written full reviews of are scored by exactly the same formula as the other 1,510, from the same third-party inputs, and they land where it puts them. Our own opinion of a game does not enter its coordinates.
- A position is not an endorsement. It says how a game was received and what it costs, not that we recommend it. Where we do recommend something, it carries a written review with a name on it.
- Fetched from live third-party data. Player sentiment from Steam, critic aggregates as published on store pages, prices checked hourly, attention from Wikipedia. Each figure carries its source and the date it was read, and we do not adjust any of them.
2 best POSTAL games, ranked
Ordered by GamingPickz Score. Every figure links back to the source that produced it.
Postal 2 at a glance Released 2003 Studio Running with Scissors Player sentiment 97% positive of 137,344 Critics 59/100 Price $9.99 Steam Deck verified Install size Not stated Accessibility 1 declared feature Raw 97% shrinks to 97.0 on 137,344 reviews, then blends with the 59 critic aggregate, giving 7.8.
What the data supports- 97% positive across 137,344 reviews is a strong signal at that volume, where a few enthusiasts cannot move the number.
- Valve has tested it and rates it Verified on the Steam Deck.
Worth checking first- Players rate it well above critics, 97 against 59. Usually a sign it improved after launch, or that it delivers something reviewers undervalued.
- Flagged for mature content on its store page.
POSTAL at a glance Released 1997 Studio Running With Scissors Player sentiment 92% positive of 14,413 Critics 56/100 Price Free Steam Deck playable Install size Not stated Accessibility 1 declared feature Raw 92% shrinks to 91.8 on 14,413 reviews, then blends with the 56 critic aggregate, giving 7.3.
What the data supports- Free to download, so trying it costs only time.
Worth checking first- Players rate it well above critics, 92 against 56. Usually a sign it improved after launch, or that it delivers something reviewers undervalued.
- Flagged for mature content on its store page.
Best and worst entry
The best-received POSTAL game we can score is Postal 2 at 7.8. The lowest is POSTAL at 7.3, a 0.5-point spread across the series. The GamingPickz Score is a composite of player sentiment, critics and popularity, computed the same way for every game.
Cheapest way in, and best value
- Cheapest right now: POSTAL at Free. Prices are read live from Steam and move.
- Best value: Postal 2, the most GamingPickz Score per dollar in the series at its current price.
On a Steam Deck
Valve's own Deck compatibility rating for the POSTAL entries on Steam:
- Verified: Postal 2
- Playable: POSTAL
Platforms across the series
Where the 2 POSTAL games have landed, counting every entry we hold:
| Platform family | Entries |
|---|---|
| PC | 2 of 2 |
The POSTAL series, game by game
Every POSTAL game we hold, in release order. Each description is the game's own, from Steam where it has a listing and Wikipedia for the older entries, never ours.
- 1997
- 2003
Postal 2
7.8Live a week in the life of "The POSTAL Dude"; a hapless everyman just trying to check off some chores. Buying milk, returning an overdue library book, getting Gary Coleman's autograph, what could possibly go wrong? (Steam)
Plot
In Postal 2 , the player takes on the role of the Postal Dude, a tall and thin red-headed man with a goatee , sunglasses, a black leather trench coat, and a T-shirt with a grey alien's face printed on it. Postal Dude lives in a dilapidated caravan trailer on land behind a house in the small town of Paradise, Arizona, with his wife, who is identified in the credits as "The Bitch". The game's levels are split into days of the week starting Monday and… (Wikipedia)
Reception
Reception Postal 2 received "mixed or average reviews" according to review aggregator website Metacritic . Some of the game's better reviews came from PC Gamer and Game Informer . On the other end of the spectrum, GMR and Computer Gaming World ( CGW ) both gave Postal 2 scores of zero, with CGW deriding Postal 2 as "the worst product ever foisted upon consumers. (Wikipedia)
POSTAL, head to head
Two entries side by side on score, price, specs and reception:
POSTAL vs other series
How POSTAL stacks up against other series in the same genre, as a whole:
Also: POSTAL vs Doom, POSTAL vs Just Cause, POSTAL vs Serious Sam, POSTAL vs Wolfenstein, POSTAL vs Borderlands, POSTAL vs Crysis, POSTAL vs Dead Island, POSTAL vs Dishonored, POSTAL vs F.E.A.R., POSTAL vs Max Payne, POSTAL vs Quake, POSTAL vs Red Faction, POSTAL vs Sniper Elite, POSTAL vs Sniper Ghost Warrior, POSTAL vs State of Decay, POSTAL vs Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, POSTAL vs America's Army, POSTAL vs BioShock, POSTAL vs Bright Memory, POSTAL vs Deep Rock Galactic, POSTAL vs Friday the 13th, POSTAL vs Homefront, POSTAL vs Infestation, POSTAL vs Killing Floor, POSTAL vs Left 4 Dead, POSTAL vs Metal Gear, POSTAL vs Outlast, POSTAL vs Prototype, POSTAL vs RAGE, POSTAL vs Red Dead Redemption, POSTAL vs Sea of Thieves, POSTAL vs Shadow Warrior, POSTAL vs Slime Rancher, POSTAL vs Sniper, POSTAL vs Squad, POSTAL vs Subnautica, POSTAL vs The Evil Within, POSTAL vs Thief, POSTAL vs World War, POSTAL vs Z1 Battle Royale, POSTAL vs Zombie Army
Common questions
How many POSTAL games are there?
We hold 2 POSTAL games in the catalogue, released between 1997 and 2003. 2 of them carry enough Steam data to rank; the rest are listed in release order below, including console-only entries with no Steam listing.
Which POSTAL game is best?
By the GamingPickz Score, Postal 2 rates highest at 7.8. That is a composite of player sentiment, the critic aggregate and popularity, computed the same way for every game, not our opinion. The full ranking is above.
What order should I play the POSTAL games in?
Release order is listed below, from 1997 to 2003. For most series that is also story order, but we list dates rather than telling you a canon; the timeline is read from Wikidata.
More franchises
Browse every game franchise ranked the same way, or head to the full grid.