Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 uses a cinematic aspect ratio by default to add black bars at the top and bottom of the screen, otherwise known as letterboxing. PC players that aren’t a fan of this can turn remove the Hellblade 2 letterbox effect, and I’ll explain how in this guide.
How to Disable the Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 Letterbox Effect
To remove the letterbox effect in Hellblade 2, you need to make a small addition 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=0
r.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
Here is how Hellblade 2 looks with and without letterboxing.
Note: While this gets the job done for the most part, there are instances where some aspect ratios might not fully display the lower half of subtitles. It’s a compromise that comes with the fix, but for most of the game, it’s largely perfect.
Performance Impact
While many users might prefer the presentation without the black bars, it’s important to note that you will certainly see degraded performance by some FPS in more intensive scenes. There is more to render here, which results in lower performance.
Users with high-end GPUs won’t feel a major difference, but if you’re on a budget GPU, it’s probably a good idea to leave the effect on considering how high the system requirements are in the first place.
Restoring the Letterbox Effect
If you want to restore the intended presentation, you can simply follow the process above, and remove the lines you previously added in the Engine.ini file.
The letterboxed effect is definitely an artistic choice on Ninja Theory’s part, but there’s a good chance this presentation effect improved the overall performance on Xbox Series consoles too. Either way, I’m sure a toggle in the game settings wouldn’t hurt, and maybe we’ll see it in a future update.
