Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 has a default cinematic aspect ratio that adds black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, a technique known as letterboxing. However, PC players who prefer not to have this effect can easily remove it by following the steps outlined in this guide.
How to Disable the Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 Letterbox Effect
In order to eliminate the letterbox effect in Hellblade 2, a minor addition must be made to the Engine.ini configuration file.
- First, open Windows Run by hitting the Windows and R keys together
- Enter the following address, and press OK
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Hellblade2\Saved\Config\Windows\
- Here, open the Engine.ini file using a text editor like Notepad or Notepad++
- Now, add the following lines at the bottom of the Engine.ini file
[SystemSettings]r.NT.AllowAspectRatioHorizontalExtension=0r.NT.EnableConstrainAspectRatio=0
- Save the file (Ctrl + S), and exit out
- Launch Hellblade 2, and you won’t have to deal with the black bars anymore
Comparison Screenshots
The appearance of Hellblade 2 can be observed with and without letterboxing.
Performance Impact
Although some users may prefer the presentation without the black bars, it should be noted that removing them will result in a decrease in performance, with some FPS drops in more demanding scenes. This is due to the increased rendering required, leading to lower overall performance.
Users who have high-end GPUs may not notice a significant change, but if you are using a budget GPU, it would be wise to keep the effect on due to the already high system requirements.
Restoring the Letterbox Effect
To revert back to the original presentation, all you have to do is repeat the steps mentioned above and delete the lines that were previously inserted into the Engine.ini file.
The use of letterboxing in Ninja Theory’s game is undoubtedly an intentional artistic decision. However, it is possible that this choice also enhanced the performance of the game on Xbox Series consoles. Whether or not this was the case, it would be beneficial to have a toggle in the game settings. Perhaps we can expect to see this feature in a future update.
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