POSTAL: Brain Damaged
Speedrun routes kept intact after a major update, French localization delivered, aim-assist tuned for controllers.
What we did: Regression testing · Speedrun route verification · Localization (French) · Controller and aim-assist testing
1. Keeping speedrun routes alive through a major update
Situation. The studio was shipping a large update. Level, mechanic and timing changes could invalidate the routes speedrunners had built, and the community would notice within hours.
What we did. Our in-house speedrunner played the full game on the update build, route by route, checking every known skip and strategy for whether it still worked or had changed.
Result. The update went out with the routes confirmed. Where something changed, the studio knew before players did, instead of finding out from a Discord thread.
2. French localization that keeps the jokes
Situation. The team wanted a French version that carried the humor and tone of the original, not a literal translation of the strings.
What we did. A native French speaker on our team, with game localization experience, adapted dialogue, UI text and references in context and checked them inside the running game.
Result. The French version shipped with the text fitting its UI and the jokes landing, which is the part a spreadsheet translation usually loses.
3. Aim-assist that behaves on an Xbox controller
Situation. Controller players reported aim-assist that sometimes failed to engage or felt unpredictable in combat.
What we did. Testers played extended combat sessions on Xbox controllers and documented exactly when assist dropped out, with video and the enemy and weapon combinations involved.
Result. The developers tuned the assist against those cases, and controller combat matched the keyboard-and-mouse experience.
What this means for your launch. Updates to a game with a competitive community need a tester who knows how that community plays. A regression pass that ignores speedrun routes is not a regression pass for this game.