Running With Scissors Cancels Postal: Bullet Paradise After AI Usage Sparks Community Backlash

A newly revealed Steam game just got canceled because of its AI usage

Almost as quickly as it was announced, a new Postal game has been canceled. Earlier this week, developer Running With Scissors announced a Vampire Survivors-inspired spin-off of its infamous PC game series, but the announcement was met with anger by Postal's avid fans when the reveal trailer appeared to heavily feature AI-generated content. We have seen an increase in the number of games using generative AI this year, and the games in question typically aren't pulled from sale or canceled before release. That's not the case here, as Postal: Bullet Paradise has been canceled It's a rarity to see a game announced and then canceled by its publisher this quickly, especially for a series as infamous as Postal. Why was Postal: Bullet Paradise canceled? The now-canceled Postal spin-off was allegedly using AI While Running With Scissors has historically been the main studio to work on Postal games, it but it had partnered with an indie developer named Goonswarm to create Postal: Bullet Paradise. The game's Steam page described it as "a bullet-heaven shooter with online co-op where everything wants you dead and you don't give a damn." The Steam page did not have any sort of AI usage disclaimers, just one for mature content. Shortly after its reveal, fans quickly noticed that the key art for the game and much of the art within the game itself seemed to be AI-generated and that Goonswarm's previous games have used AI. While Running With Scissors initially rebuffed these AI-related accusations, it seemed to have concluded that Goonswarm did use AI as it canceled the game. The following message was shared on Running With Scissors' official X account, confirming that it has ended the partnership with Goonswarm on the game. The studio also apologized to its fans, although it called out the ones that sent them death threats: After revealing POSTAL: Bullet Paradise, a title Running With Scissors was planning on publishing but not developing, we've been overwhelmed with negative responses from our concerned POSTAL Community. The strong feedback from them is that elements of the game are very likely AI-generated and thus has caused extreme damage to our brand and our company reputation. We've always been, and will always be, transparent with our community. Our trust in the development team is broken, therefore we've killed the project. We have a lot of good things coming (some you know and some you don't). Since forming Running With Scissors in 1996, we've always said that our fans are part of the team. Our priority is to always do right by the millions who support the POSTAL franchise. We are grateful for the opportunity to make the games we want to play, and will continue to focus on our new projects and updates coming in 2026 and beyond. We can't wait to share more! We'd like of course to apologize to anyone who felt insulted in the heat of the moment and we thank you for raising concerns at the time. As for those who specifically sent us death threats, the apology does not apply. Earlier today, Goonswarm put out a message of its own on X, saying that the studio is shutting down while denying that AI was used in the development of Postal: Bullet Paradise. Postal is a series that I heavily associate with the risque part of Steam. They are irreverent games, with Postal 2 in particular being a first-person sandbox where players could mess around with and kill people. This franchise has been at the center of controversy in the past, but never dealt with anything quite like this, where the developer and publisher behind the game weren't fully transparent about the tools used to make the game. You can always expect things to get weird when you're dealing with Postal. As AI-generated art becomes more common, this is likely a situation we may see happen more and more. I commend Running With Scissors for canceling the game after concluding it used generative AI, although I hope it can better parse external projects for itin the future. If developers are going to be using generative AI or machine learning-reliant content in their games, they need to be very clear about how it's going to be used. Postal 2 Like FPS Open-World Systems Released April 13, 2003 ESRB M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mature Humor, Strong Language, Use of Drugs Developer(s) Running with Scissors Publisher(s) Running with Scissors Engine Unreal Engine 2 5 Images Where to play Close WHERE TO PLAY DIGITAL Genre(s) FPS, Open-World Powered by Expand Collapse

New Postal game announced and immediately canceled amid 'false AI accusations'

Developer Running With Scissors announced a new entry in its provocative first-person shooter franchise Postal on Wednesday, only to cancel it by Thursday. Now, the studio behind that game says it's shutting down amid backlash and threats against its developers. Running With Scissors revealed Postal: Bullet Paradise on Wednesday, describing the game as a "timeline-hopping dystopian bullet heaven first-person shooter with POSTAL's signature darkly humorous personality." Developer Goonswarm Games was behind the title, which appears to draw inspiration from games like Vampire Survivors. Players would have taken on the role of various Postal Dudes, mowing down (and urinating on) hordes of cultists and protestors in an attempt to rid the world of "forced positivity, constant surveillance, obnoxiously bright lights, and social credit scores." Postal: Bullet Paradise was pegged for a Q3 2026 release on Steam, with versions for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5 planned. But backlash to Postal: Bullet Paradise was swift, with Postal fans accusing Goonswarm Games and Running With Scissors of using generative AI artwork in the game's creation. And while Running With Scissors co-owner Mike Jaret vigorously fought back against claims that Bullet Paradise was using AI-generated assets, Running With Scissors' owners seemingly had a change of heart in recent days. In a statement posted to the Running With Scissors X account, the studio said it had "killed the project" after being "overwhelmed with negative responses from our concerned POSTAL Community" regarding Bullet Paradise. "Our trust in the development team is broken," Running With Scissors said. While the official announcement for Postal: Bullet Paradise is still live on the RWS website, the reveal trailer for the game has been set to private on YouTube, and its Steam page now includes the message "Notice: POSTAL: Bullet Paradise is no longer available on the Steam store." The game cannot be found via Steam's search function. Prior to the game's apparent cancellation, Jaret had defended Goonswarm Games' work and Running With Scissors' reputation on the Postal Discord. In the wake of the game's reveal, Jaret said that "ignorant assholes continue to accuse of using AI" and warned members of the Postal community that "if you still think that key art was made with AI, you can just excuse yourself from our Discord." On Friday, Goonswarm Games released a statement regarding Postal: Bullet Paradise's cancellation, saying that it had been falsely accused of using generative AI and that the studio was shutting down as a result of the controversy. "Our studio was mistakenly accused of using AI-generated art in our games, and every attempt to clarify our work only escalated the situation," reads a statement from Goonswarm Games. "In the last few hours, we've received a large number of threats, insults, and mockery, which pushed us toward a very difficult decision. "We're truly sorry for the artist who put their soul into this and supported our studio, only to face false AI accusations. It's tough to pour so much energy into a game and end up caught in the middle of an AI war by accident." Reached for comment, Goonswarm Games CEO Artem Korovkin told Polygon that the studio's closure will impact nine developers and contractors. Asked whether the developer plans to release Bullet Paradise without the Postal name, Korovkin said, "we still own source code, but we don't think continue developing this project is realistic." Polygon has reached out to Jaret for comment, and for clarification on what transpired between Running With Scissors and Goonswarm Games. This story will be updated when Jaret responds. The Postal franchise has been running since 1997, when Running With Scissors released the original off-color shooter Postal for Mac and Windows PC. Multiple sequels and spinoffs have followed, including the most recent mainline entry in the franchise, 2022's Postal 4: No Regerts, and throwback "boomer shooter" Postal: Brain Damaged. A remake of the second game in the franchise is in development under the name Postal 2 Redux. Take a look at the trailer for Postal: Bullet Paradise below, courtesy of Gamers Prey.

New 'Postal' Game Canceled One Day After Reveal, Following Generative AI Allegations - Decrypt

Running With Scissors said it's shifting focus to other 2026 projects after reviewing the incident. Running With Scissors, publisher of the controversial shooter game franchise Postal, said this week that it had canceled a newly revealed series entry one day after announcing it, responding to backlash after fans said the reveal trailer appeared to use AI-generated artwork. The game, Portal: Bullet Paradise, was a fast-paced first-person shooter spinoff developed externally by Goonswarm Games. The backlash occurred just days after Running With Scissors railed against generative AI usage in gaming, taking a stand against AI in creative work. The publisher said it ended the project because its trust in the development team had broken down, adding that it aimed to remain transparent with its community and still had several upcoming projects in the pipeline. "We've been overwhelmed with negative responses from our concerned Postal community," the company wrote on X. "The strong feedback from them is that elements of the game are very likely AI-generated, and thus has caused extreme damage to our brand and our company reputation." The backlash against Postal: Bullet Paradise intensified after fans dissected the December 3 trailer and flagged details they argued were produced by AI tools. Late last month, Running With Scissors said on X that customers should know if a game was created using AI. "Customers deserve to know if a game was crafted with creativity, soul and actual talent rather than some machine that craps out anything from a prompt," they wrote. Frustration from gamers escalated when company representatives defended the trailer on X and in Discord while insulting critics. Screenshots show company reps using expletives and slurs when responding to allegations. As the images spread, Running With Scissors issued a separate X message addressing the conduct. "We'd like, of course, to apologize to anyone who felt insulted in the heat of the moment, and we thank you for raising concerns at the time," they said in an added post. "As for those who specifically sent us death threats, the apology does not apply." Running with Scissors did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Decrypt. The Postal franchise began in 1997 and quickly became known for dark humor, confrontational satire, and graphic violence. The franchise takes its name from the term "going postal," which originally referred to a series of workplace shootings by U.S. postal employees in the 1990s, and it later became slang for sudden, violent outbursts or shooting sprees more generally. Several countries, including Australia, Germany, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sweden, and France, banned entries in the series for its intense violence, graphic content, animal cruelty, and offensive themes. The property later inspired a widely panned 2007 live-action film directed by Uwe Boll. The company said it would shift its attention to projects planned for 2026, and reiterated that threats against staff would be reported. The studio has not said whether Postal: Bullet Paradise could return in another form, and the experience has prompted renewed scrutiny of how developers and publishers disclose the use of AI in game production. "Since forming Running With Scissors in 1996, we've always said that our fans are part of the team. Our priority is to always do right by the millions who support the Postal franchise," they wrote. "We are grateful for the opportunity to make the games we want to play, and will continue to focus on our new projects and updates coming in 2026 and beyond." Following the backlash, Goonswarm Games announced on Friday that the studio would shut down and cease operations. "Our project, and everything we built over the past six years, was canceled in just a few days," it wrote in a statement. "Our studio was mistakenly accused of using AI-generated art in our games, and every attempt to clarify our work only escalated the situation," they said, adding that the company has received a "large number of threats, insults, and mockery." Major game publishers, including Ubisoft, CD Projekt Red, Square Enix, and Activision, have expanded their use of generative AI in recent years, adopting the technology for in-game asset creation, internal testing, moderation, and efforts to speed up development pipelines. Developers have faced growing pushback from players who argue that AI-generated art can look inconsistent, rely on copyrighted training data, or replace work typically done by human artists. Those concerns have surfaced across studios experimenting with automated tools, regardless of project size. The broader industry is also grappling with labor pressures. So far in 2025, more than 3,500 jobs have been cut across game studios, according to tracking site Gaming Layoffs, fueling worries that automation will further reduce opportunities for artists and other early-career developers. Nearly 15,000 game industry jobs were cut in 2024. "We're truly sorry for the artists who put their soul into this and supported our studio, only to face false AI accusations," Goonswarm wrote. "It's tough to pour so much energy into a game and end up caught up in the middle of an AI war by accident."

Remember Postal? In the last 48 hours publisher Running With Scissors has announced a new game, insulted fans, apologized, canceled the game, the studio making it denied wrongdoing, shut down anyway, and we can thank the magic of AI for all of it

The Postal series is essentially the videogame equivalent of Uwe Boll's filmography*. They're notoriously awful -- the last one we reviewed was Postal 3 in 2012, which earned a dismal 21% -- and they keep happening for some reason. A new addition to the lineup was announced on December 3, in fact, called Postal: Bullet Heaven. And then approximately 24 hours later, everything went very sideways. "After revealing Postal: Bullet Paradise, a title Running With Scissors was planning on publishing but not developing, we've been overwhelmed with negative responses from our concerned Postal community," RWS wrote on X, the day after Bullet Paradise was revealed. "The strong feedback from them is that elements of the game are very likely AI-generated and thus has caused extreme damage to our brand and our company reputation. "We've always been, and will always be, transparent with our community. Our trust in the development team is broken, therefore we've killed the project. We have a lot of good things coming (some you know and some you don't)." It's very funny to think about a videogame that's so odiously bad it doesn't even meet the standards of the guys responsible for Postal, but this is where we find ourselves. "The concerned Postal community" also comes off as a knee-slapper, although that may be unfair: Postal 4: No Regerts, released in 2022, has more than 10,000 user reviews on Steam, and a Kickstarter for Postal 2 Redux more than doubled its $250,000 goal earlier this year. Can I explain it? Absolutely not. But there is clearly a community of some sort here, they like what they like, and they do not like generative AI: Complaints about it are plentiful on the Postal subreddit and Steam. The Postal: Bullet Paradise reveal trailer has been removed from the RWS channel but remains available elsewhere. What makes all of this even more interesting is that it happened just a week after Running With Scissors weighed in on the AI labelling micro-controversy stirred up by Epic Games boss Tim Sweeney, who said last week that stores like Steam should stop labelling games made with AI because pretty soon everything's going to be made with AI anyway. "Customers deserve to know if a game was crafted with creativity, soul and actual talent rather than some machine that craps out anything from a prompt," RWS wrote. "We don't know what the future holds, but AI apologists like Mr. Sweeney are making this shit unbearable already." It's a laudable stance -- gotta hand it to 'em and all that -- which was unfortunately undercut somewhat by the studio's initial reaction to complaints about the new game. RWS executive Mike Jaret forcefully denied the allegations in now-deleted messages in the Postal Discord, which is maybe understandable in the moment -- but then he took it a step further and said "the anti-AI mob has ruined art," something of a contrast to the studio's public anti-AI line in the sand. There was also at least one ableist slur rolled out by a developer, which is possibly the least surprising thing amidst all of this, and it was all just very ugly and stupid, and everyone got good and mad about it. RWS later apologized "to anyone who felt insulted in the heat of the moment," although it pointedly excluded anyone who sent death threats to the company over the new game, because of course there were death threats. As it noted in the cancellation announcement, Running With Scissors was only set to publish Postal: Bullet Paradise. It was being developed by Russian studio Goonswarm Games -- which, as far as I can tell, has no connection to Goonswarm of EVE Online fame -- and the studio has denied the use of AI-generated art in the game. But it also said that, in the wake of "a large number of threats, insults, and mockery," it's decided to close its doors outright. This presumably means that Postal 2 Redux will be the next Postal game. It's scheduled for 2026.

"Has caused extreme damage to our brand and our company reputation" - Running with Scissors cancels Postal: Bullet Paradise over AI-generated assets... two days after reveal

After receiving pushback for its flagrant use of generative AI, Postal: Bullet Paradise has been cancelled... just two days after being revealed. In a statement from publisher Running With Scissors, the company said the reception to Postal: Bullet Paradise - a co-op "bullet-heaven" first-person shooter from developer Goonswarm Games - had "caused extreme damage" to its brand and reputation. "We've been overwhelmed with negative responses from our concerned Postal Community," Running with Scissors founder Vince Desi stated today. The "strong" feedback the publisher recieved said much of the game appeared to have been made using generative AI. "We've always been, and will always be, transparent with our community," Desi continued, adding the publisher's trust in the development team had been "broken". As such, Running with Scissors has "killed the project", which would have seen players taking on the mantle of one of the Dudes from across the Postal multiverse. "Since forming Running With Scissors in 1996, we've always said that our fans are part of the team. Our priority is to always do right by the millions who support the Postal franchise. We are grateful for the opportunity to make the games we want to play, and will continue to focus on our new projects and updates coming in 2026 and beyond," the founder closed. "We can't wait to share more!" Postal: Bullet Paradise was announced on 3rd December, with a PC release planned for 2026, before an arrival on PlayStation and Switch consoles. Running with Scissors' decision to cancel Postal: Bullet Paradise comes as more and more companies are using AI technology. Recent examples include NPC conversations like those in the newly-released Where Winds Meet. Meanwhile, just yesterday, Supertrick Games - the developer of Let it Die sequel Inferno - released a statement, after its own use of AI caused a bit of a stir earlier in the week.

Postal Game Announced And Canned Over AI Slop In Same Week

Is this a new record for announcing and then killing a gaming project? The Postal games have always been what you might call "slop." Running With Scissors' series of puerile, drearily unfunny action games have somehow regularly been released since 1997, relying entirely on their hamfisted "shock factor" to try to impress an audience that delights in "politically incorrect" or "anti-woke" dross, without also remembering the important elements of "fun." But the most recently revealed entry in the 30-year series, Postal: Bullet Paradise, earns the "slop" mantle for a different reason, after massive backlash against its prolific use of AI has seen it canceled in the same week it was announced! Revealed just two days ago, on December 3, Postal: Bullet Paradise was due to be a Vampire Survivors-like spin-off from the franchise, developed by a separate team called Goonswarm Games. Described as a "bullet-heaven shooter with online co-op," Running With Scissors promoted the upcoming game with a Steam page, YouTube trailers, and a section on its own website. Of them all, the only thing that fully remains two days later is the post, with the Steam page delisted and the game removed from RWS's and Goonswarm's pages. Based on the game's cancellation announcement on Running With Scissors' X page, it seems potential fans launched a sizable backlash after noticing Postal: Bullet Paradise allegedly contained AI-generated material. Users on the franchise's Reddit were complaining about AI art appearing in the trailer, and alleging Goonswarm had used AI in its previous work. "You see can very clearly that all the pixel sprites are ai generated," claimed on Reddit poster, adding, "It just sucks that rws is going down the path of ai since they've been so supportive of art for a long time." Then came the announcement declaring the entire project flushed. "After revealing POSTAL: Bullet Paradise, a title Running With Scissors was planning on publishing but not developing," says the statement, "we've been overwhelmed with negative responses from our concerned POSTAL Community. The strong feedback from them is that elements of the game are very likely AI-generated and thus has caused extreme damage to our brand and our company reputation." The statement goes on to express RWS's desire to be transparent before stating that Bullet Paradise has been canceled, effective immediately. "Our trust in the development team is broken," it reads, "therefore we've killed the project." This is especially embarrassing for the publisher, given that it had only a few days ago publicly disagreed with Epic's Tim Sweeney over the need to declare AI use in game development. The original Postal, a top-down shooter about playing a postal worker who goes on a mass murder spree throughout the town of Paradise, Arizona, went out of its way to court controversy and notoriety when it first appeared. Its final level was set in an elementary school (albeit where the main character, Postal Dude, has a complete breakdown after none of his weapons work on the children), and its deliberately crass approach was designed to get as much negative attention as possible, presumably to drive sales. However, the mediocre game never sold all that well, and after an equally crap 3D sequel five years later, the company began outsourcing development to Russian studios. 2011's Postal III was made by Trashmasters, and was so terrible RWS apologized for the game in the aftermath, eventually deleting it from their store entirely. A 2016 redux version of Postal 2 sold so poorly on PC that console versions were canceled (until years later), until RWS finally returned to making their own game with 2022's Postal 4: No Regrets. It's probably not a good thing when your franchise's highlight is a Uwe Boll movie. And to be clear, that too was atrocious.

Publisher kills a game over gen AI accusations, leading its developer to shut down while insisting it was "mistakenly accused": "Everything we built over the past 6 years, was canceled in just a few days"

"We'd like of course to apologize to anyone who felt insulted in the heat of the moment and we thank you for raising concerns at the time" Postal IP owner Running With Sicssors has cancelled a project called Postal: Bullet Paradise two days after it was announced due to negative fan feedback over the potential use of AI. Earlier this week, developer Goonswarm Games announced Postal: Bullet Paradise - a Vampire Survivors-like FPS set in the Postal universe. However, the game was immediately slammed by fans, who pointed out the potential use of AI-generated art. Despite some pushback from the publisher's co-owner and other developers on Discord, Running With Scissors has cancelled the project following the negative feedback. In a statement sent to the press, Running with Scissors founder Vince Desi said: "After revealing Postal: Bullet Paradise, a title Running With Scissors was planning on publishing but not developing, we've been overwhelmed with negative responses from our concerned Postal Community. The strong feedback from them is that elements of the game are very likely AI-generated and thus has caused extreme damage to our brand and our company reputation." Desi continues: "We've always been, and will always be, transparent with our community. Our trust in the development team is broken; therefore, we've killed the project." He adds, "Since forming Running With Scissors in 1996, we've always said that our fans are part of the team. Our priority is to always do right by the millions who support the Postal franchise." Running With Scissors also published the following statement on Twitter, saying: "We'd like of course to apologize to anyone who felt insulted in the heat of the moment and we thank you for raising concerns at the time." The publisher also said, "As for those who specifically sent us death threats, the apology does not apply." Following the project's cancellation, Goonswarm Games issued its own Twitter statement, announcing the studio's closure. "Our project, and everything we built over the past six years, was canceled in just a few days." The statement says the studio was "mistakenly accused of using AI-generated art in our games" and that "every attempt to clarify our work only escalated the situation," noting the team has received "threats, insults, and mockery," which led the team to decide to close the studio. "We're truly sorry for the artists who put their soul into this and supported our studio, only to face false AI accusations." The statement then concludes, adding, "It's tough to pour so much energy into a game and end up caught in the middle of an AI war by accident."

Developer of New Postal Game Shuts Down Studio After Game Was Announced, Then Canceled Over Gen AI Allegations - IGN

The studio behind the Postal franchise just announced that it will be publishing a brand new Postal game, to be developed by Goonswarm Games. Unfortunately, it even more recently announced it would be cancelling said game, due to accusations that Goonswarm had used generative AI in its development. And now, Goonswarm is shutting down. The game, entitled Postal: Bullet Paradise, was announced earlier this week on Wednesday with a reveal trailer and press release. It purports to be a "timeline-hopping, dystopian bullet heavne first-person shooter" set in the Postal universe, where players can select from 11 unlockable Postal Dudes from different timelines and, well, shoot people. However, not long after the trailer debuted, Postal fans began pointing out that the game had a lot of hallmarks of assets made with generative AI. When we went to embed the trailer into this article for you to watch, our access to the video file had been cut off and the official version had been removed from YouTube. You can still watch it through the Steam page here and judge for yourself. Checking in on the Postal subreddit, you can see some of the feedback. Fan spoint out that the pixel sprites' mouths "don't make sense", and elements such as shading and pixel placement are off somehow. They also point out that Goonswarm has almost certainly used generative AI in its games before (a close watch of this trailer has a number of pretty obvious indicators), making it not impossible that it would do so again. When accusations initially began flying, both Goonswarm and Running With Scissors denied the use of generative AI. As Goonswarm told PCGamesN in a statement: No generative AI was used for the reveal trailer or for the game. All assets were created by our human artists using standard tools. We've already shared layered PSDs, work-in-progress files, and other materials to confirm this. Any mistakes or rough spots in those files are being misinterpreted as 'proof' of AI, but they simply reflect the normal, human art-creation process Meanwhile, while Running With Scissors initially promised to investigate further, studio co-owner Mike Jeret angered the Postal audience further by not just vehemently denying there was generative AI in the game, but also using fairly strong language toward the accusers, referring to them as "ignorant assholes" and telling anyone who thought the game used generative AI to "excuse yourself from our Discord." But finally, today, the publisher has taken a definitive stance. Running With Scissors announced it would be canceling the game entirely, saying that the audience feedback had caused "extreme damage to our brand and our company reputation" and that it no longer trusted the development team. Here's Running With Scissors' statement in full: After revealing Postal: Bullet Paradise, a title Running With Scissors was planning on publishing but not developing, we've been overwhelmed with negative responses from our concerned Postal Community. The strong feedback from them is that elements of the game are very likely AI-generated and thus has caused extreme damage to our brand and our company reputation. We've always been, and will always be, transparent with our community. Our trust in the development team is broken; therefore, we've killed the project. We have a lot of good things coming (some you know and some you don't). Since forming Running With Scissors in 1996, we've always said that our fans are part of the team. Our priority is to always do right by the millions who support the Postal franchise. We are grateful for the opportunity to make the games we want to play, and will continue to focus on our new projects and updates coming in 2026 and beyond. We can't wait to share more! Fan feedback in response to this seems generally positive, with a number of people suggesting they were excited about the premise of the game and hoped it could be passed on to a different developer. Some are still hoping for an apology from Jeret for his language toward the community, but that has not yet manifested. But there's one group of folks who aren't happy, and that's Goonswarm. In a statement posted to Twitter, the studio announced it would be shutting down due to the cancellation of its game. Here's their statement in full as well: Our project, and everything we built over the psat six years, was canceled in just a few days. Our studio was mistakenly accused of using AI-generated art in our games, and every attempt to clarify our work only escalated the situation. In the last few hours, we've received a large number of threats, insults, and mockery, which pushed us toward a very difficult decision. We're truly sorry for the artists who put their soul into this and supported our studio, only to face false AI accusations. It's tough to pour so much energy into a game and end up caught in the middle of an AI war by accident. We've decided to shut down the studio and end all future activities. Thank you for being with us. Stay strong, play games. This is far from the first time the Postal games, which are essentially about various guys committing mass shootings, have been embroiled in controversy. The last mainline game, Postal 4: NoRegerts, released in 2022 to a rare 2/10 from us. Our reviewer said that "the comedy is lazy and embarrassing, the combat is messy and painfully unsatisfying, and it runs so poorly on high-end hardware that it can scarcely be enjoyed at all even by those just hoping for some campy shock humor." Running With Scissors has also released multiple spinoffs in recent years, such as 2022's Postal: Brain Damaged by CreativeForge Games and a 2023 April Fool's joke in POOSTALL Royale.

Running With Scissors Reveals, Then Cancels, New Postal Game After Accusations of Generative AI Use

The studio behind the Postal franchise just announced that it will be publishing a brand new Postal game, to be developed by Goonswarm Games. Unfortunately, it even more recently announced it would be cancelling said game, due to accusations that Goonswarm had used generative AI in its development. The game, entitled Postal: Bullet Paradise, was announced earlier this week on Wednesday with a reveal trailer and press release. It purports to be a "timeline-hopping, dystopian bullet heavne first-person shooter" set in the Postal universe, where players can select from 11 unlockable Postal Dudes from different timelines and, well, shoot people. However, not long after the trailer debuted, Postal fans began pointing out that the game had a lot of hallmarks of assets made with generative AI. When we went to embed the trailer into this article for you to watch, our access to the video file had been cut off and the official version had been removed from YouTube. You can still watch it through the Steam page here and judge for yourself. Checking in on the Postal subreddit, you can see some of the feedback. Fan spoint out that the pixel sprites' mouths "don't make sense", and elements such as shading and pixel placement are off somehow. They also point out that Goonswarm has almost certainly used generative AI in its games before (a close watch of this trailer has a number of pretty obvious indicators), making it likely it would do so again: When accusations initially began flying, both Goonswarm and Running With Scissors denied the use of generative AI. As Goonswarm told PCGamesN in a statement: No generative AI was used for the reveal trailer or for the game. All assets were created by our human artists using standard tools. We've already shared layered PSDs, work-in-progress files, and other materials to confirm this. Any mistakes or rough spots in those files are being misinterpreted as 'proof' of AI, but they simply reflect the normal, human art-creation process Meanwhile, while Running With Scissors initially promised to investigate further, studio co-owner Mike Jeret angered the Postal audience further by not just vehemently denying there was generative AI in the game, but also using fairly strong language toward the accusers, referring to them as "ignorant assholes" and telling anyone who thought the game used generative AI to "excuse yourself from our Discord." But finally, today, the publisher has taken a definitive stance. Running With Scissors announced it would be canceling the game entirely, saying that the audience feedback had caused "extreme damage to our brand and our company reputation" and that it no longer trusted the development team. Here's Running With Scissors' statement in full: After revealing Postal: Bullet Paradise, a title Running With Scissors was planning on publishing but not developing, we've been overwhelmed with negative responses from our concerned Postal Community. The strong feedback from them is that elements of the game are very likely AI-generated and thus has caused extreme damage to our brand and our company reputation. We've always been, and will always be, transparent with our community. Our trust in the development team is broken; therefore, we've killed the project. We have a lot of good things coming (some you know and some you don't). Since forming Running With Scissors in 1996, we've always said that our fans are part of the team. Our priority is to always do right by the millions who support the Postal franchise. We are grateful for the opportunity to make the games we want to play, and will continue to focus on our new projects and updates coming in 2026 and beyond. We can't wait to share more! Fan feedback in response to this seems generally positive, with a number of people suggesting they were excited about the premise of the game and hoped it could be passed on to a different developer. Some are still hoping for an apology from Jeret for his language toward the community, but that has not yet manifested. IGN has also reached out to Goonswarm for an updated statement. This is far from the first time the Postal games, which are essentially about various guys committing mass shootings, have been embroiled in controversy. The last mainline game, Postal 4: NoRegerts, released in 2022 to a rare 2/10 from us. Our reviewer said that "the comedy is lazy and embarrassing, the combat is messy and painfully unsatisfying, and it runs so poorly on high-end hardware that it can scarcely be enjoyed at all even by those just hoping for some campy shock humor." Running With Scissors has also released multiple spinoffs in recent years, such as 2022's Postal: Brain Damaged by CreativeForge Games and a 2023 April Fool's joke in POOSTALL Royale. Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].