Most cutscenes still have black bars. Do you need them?

I got an ultra wide monitor three days ago and am now discovering how support is handled in different games while trying not to become one of the annoying ultra wide elitist complainers I talked crap about. Red Dead Redemption 2 has ultra wide built in and the cutscenes are in a 21:9 ratio, but the idiot designers kept the black bars at the top and bottom as if played on a widescreen TV. Black bars used to differentiate between gameplay and cutscenes has been a staple of video games forever, but I really don't think it's necessary in most cases.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1174180/discussions/0/1741140686417123275/

"I'd kinda like to remove the side borders with cinematic mode, but with cutscenes I get why they're there. Like with a lot of scripted stuff, there's probably things you're not supposed to see past the camera. Haven't used the FOV mod, so not sure if this is definitely the case or not."

Things you're not supposed to see? No, fool, the cutscenes are already ultra wide. The person after him recommends a mod that removes the pillar boxes and letterboxes, but that's not a fix. That just creates more of a fish eye effect where the subjects are in the center and surrounded by vast empty space.

https://community.pcgamingwiki.com/files/file/1458-red-dead-redemption-2-ultrawide-multimonitor-fov-mod/

Don't like the game and its cutscenes anyway, but it speaks to a larger subject. Do they help you personally tell the difference between gameplay and cinematic?

I don't like cutscenes or movies or TV shows with black bars. If I could disable them I would. On TV shows and movies I just zoom in the image (not stretching, just zooming in until the black bars are gone and the sides of the scene get cut off, but there's never anything important there). For a game it can sometimes switch between full screen 16:9 and black bars. Not sure why they do this, it's distracting. Use all of my screen.

I don't mind black bars if I can see the whole scene. That's my compromise I'm willing to make.

What I don't like it when they can't do the black bars and the aspect ratio get's all messed up. I'm playing Midnight Suns and while the in-game cutscenes are fine, the pre-made cutscenes are zoomed in all weird and I miss out on a lot of it.

Good thing I don't care that much about seeing it, but I would like to. Sadly the only fix for it is a community patch that apparently doesn't work now because *sigh* Denuvo views it as a hack. Once again, anti-piracy measures (on old games, too) do little to nothing to combat piracy while the consumer is left with the inconvenience of it, from a developer/publisher that can't be bothered to fix problems the community can.

Yay modern gaming!!

Same thing with Far Cry 6: black bars all around!

On the bright side Outlaws does have flawless ultrawide support.

Usually I just don't want many cutscenes in games period. Keep in minimal just to pander towards a niche audience that demands story time, otherwise let's get back to gameplay please. Cutscene heavy games exist for sure but depending on the game you're just making the player bored.

As for black bars; black bars was a general criticism of Psycho Break/ The Evil Within, was later patched but the damage was already done at that point, no one liked it. Its sequel did away with that altogether (fun unlockable after competition), both in-game and cutscene. And as such is generally more well regarded. Though honestly I find both games to have differing advantages and disadvantages. Both being some of my favorite Survival Horror games to revisit

@RSM-HQ: It's worth noting the original RE4 also had black bars due to the gameplay having a wide aspect ratio even though it was designed for 4:3 screens. People didn't seem to care about that.

I wonder if that's why Evil Within did it too.

Also the 3D Zelda games love to have random parts where they do letterboxing.

@mrbojangles25: I feel the same way, I don’t mind black bars as long as the image is not cropped or stretched to fill in the screen. I still play some old DOS games (was playing Ultima 8 again recently) so I am okay with black bars.

I really don't care for Black Bars in my games and I'm just here play to enjoy the game itself. People who like them, more power to you. People who hate them, more power to you. Me? Just don't care if its there or not.

@girlusocrazy: Possibly, the game was a big love letter to Resident Evil 4 & Resident Evil Remake both of which used black bars. As you noted I feel on the older SD aspect ratio was considered acceptable. Whether on HD widescreen set-ups was considered a hindrance. Products of different times.

Don't care much, but I see no reason for them. I'd rather not have them.

Also bothers me when cutscenes drop the frame rate compared to the gameplay. I would want the frame rate to match otherwise it is distracting.

Black bar, no blacks, I simply prefer less of them.

Crysis. Lol. Look at how the black bars stop within the intended 16:9 frame.

Just get rid of cutscenes and you get rid of that problem, you're welcome.

@warm_gun said:

Crysis. Lol. Look at how the black bars stop within the intended 16:9 frame.

2 second search on PC gaming wiki: