Microsoft has just released Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 on PC. For cinematic purposes, this game has some black bars that you cannot disable via its in-game screenshots. However, there is a way to remove those annoying black bars and force the game into full-screen mode.
So, to remove the black bars, Chromatic Aberration, Film Grain and Depth of Field, you’ll use the following commands. You must copy and paste them at the end of the game’s Engine.ini file. This file can be located at “Users\%LOCALAPPDATA%\Hellblade2\Saved\Config\Windows\”.
[SystemSettings]
r.NT.Lens.Distortion.Intensity=0
r.NT.Lens.Distortion.Stretch=0
r.NT.Lens.ChromaticAberration.Intensity=0
r.NT.DOF.RotationalBokeh=0
r.NT.DOF.NTBokehTransform=0
r.FilmGrain=0
r.NT.AllowAspectRatioHorizontalExtension=0
r.NT.EnableConstrainAspectRatio=0
We’ve tested those commands and we can confirm that they work. Do note though that playing the game in full-screen mode comes with a major performance hit. On our NVIDIA RTX 4090, we saw a 14fps performance decrease. Not only that but since the game does not have a FOV slider, it will feel a bit zoomed in.
Here’s a comparison screenshot at the exact same location. The game was set on Max Settings at 4K with DLAA and DLSS 3 Frame Generation. So yeah, make sure to use this workaround only if you already have high framerates.
In a way, this full-screen mode ruins the game’s cinematic feeling. So, I’m not really sure whether it’s worth it on big PC monitors. Yes, the black bars are annoying. However, if you have a 32” or 42” monitor, you won’t really care about them. At least I didn’t. On the other hand, those with small PC monitors will definitely appreciate it. By running the game in full-screen, they’ll get a bigger image. As such, they’ll be able to more easily enjoy the game.
Our PC Performance Analysis for this game will come out later this week. In that article, we’ll benchmark numerous GPUs from both AMD and NVIDIA. So, stay tuned for more!
UPDATE:
Here’s how you can keep the same aspect ratio when removing the black bars. Add this line at the end of the Engine.ini file.
AspectRatioAxisConstraint = AspectRatio_MaintainXFOV
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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