3 Years with Ultrawide Display - Support Summary in 80 Games I played/tested

[Krzych]

3 Years with Ultrawide Monitor

Support Summary in 80 games

 

Since there still are a lot of complaints, or rather myths, about 21:9 support, I decided to make a summary of ultrawide support in all games I have played to date. This thread is frequently updated, starting from 12 months, through 18 months, 32 months and now 3 years with ultrawide display.

Under each game I am putting 21:9 screenshot, information about if support is native or you need a fix, and if you need a fix then what kind of fix. Additionally there is information about cutscenes and HUD as those are two places where support will vary.

At the end I will make a statistical summary for everything.

The list contains games I played or at least tested for few hours, so this is the list of games I, as 21:9 user and gamer, naturally encountered in last 32 months. 

The list contains variety of games, from the latest ones to very old ones, different genres, etc.

 

Everything is in spoiler on a request from viewers.

 

Spoiler

 

Abzû (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: -

ADR1FT (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9

The background of main menu is broken.

Anthem (2019)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9

Assassin's Creed (2007)

Native Support: No
Solution:.exe replacement/hex edit

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 16:9

Assassin's Creed II (2010)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9
HUD: 16:9

Gameplay starts in 16:9 and then black bars are disappearing in 2-3 seconds

Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (2010)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9
HUD: 16:9

Gameplay starts in 16:9 and then black bars are disappearing in 2-3 seconds

Assassin's Creed: Revelations (2011)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9
HUD: 16:9

Gameplay starts in 16:9 and then black bars are disappearing in 2-3 seconds

Assassin's Creed III (2012)

Native Support: No
Solution: .exe replacement/hex edit

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 16:9

Rare pop-in issues on the side of 21:9 screen

Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013)

Native Support: No
Solution: Flawless Widescreen or .exe replacement/hex edit

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 16:9

Assassin's Creed: Rogue (2014)

Native Support: No
Solution: .exe replacement/hex edit

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 16:9

Assassin's Creed: Unity (2014)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate (2015)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: 16:9

On some patch versions cutscenes were 21:9 and on some 16:9.

Assassin's Creed: Origins (2017)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: 16:9

In-game cutscenes are all 21:9, pre-rendered cutscenes are 16:9.

Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (2018)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: 16:9

In-game cutscenes are all 21:9, pre-rendered cutscenes are 16:9.

Adam's Venture: Origins (2016)

Native Support: No
Solution: None

American Truck Simulator (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (2011)

Native Support: Yes*

Gameplay: 21:9*
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: 21:9

Game zooms in to fill the screen, although by defult camera is so zoomed out that this is not a problem. Cutscenes are cut on the top and bottom, which sometimes can be very visible.

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (2014)

Native Support: No
Solution: Flawless Widescreen

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9 (not sure about that)

Crashday Redline Edition (2017)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9 

Remaster of 2006 Crashday.

Crossout (2017-)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: ?
HUD: 21:9

I didn't take any screenshot so here is a video instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvjrX6UDGM0

Dark Souls II (2014)

Native Support: No
Solution: Flawless Widescreen

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: mess
HUD: 16:9

You to run in Windowed or Borderless mode to get this fix to work.

Cutscenes are a complete mess. There is 21:9 cutscene with additional black bars on 16:9 space and no bars on 21:9 space. Quite hilarious.

Dark Souls III (2016)

Native Support: No
Solution: .exe replacement/hex edit

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: ?
HUD: 16:9

I don't remember how cutscenes worked.

Dear Esther (2012)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: -

Original game supports 21:9 perfectly, but Landmark Edition has some issues from what I heard. I didn't find enough of a difference between them to bother with trying to fix Landmark Edition.

Deluxe Ski Jump 4 (2011)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: none
HUD: 21:9

Gameplay and in game HUD is proper 21:9, main menus are stretched.

Devil May Cry(2013)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 16:9

Diablo III (2012)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9*
HUD: 21:9

You need to use Windowed Fullscreen mode (basically Borderless)

Cutscenes are 21:9 but I don't remember if they are filling 21:9 space or they are just 16:9 with black bars on the top and bottom.

Deus Ex: Mankind Divided (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: 16:9

In game cutscenes are 21:9, pre-rendered ones are 16:9.

Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014)

Native Support: No
Solution: Flawless Widescreen

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9
HUD: 21:9

Elder Scrolls Online (2014)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: -
HUD: 21:9 (customizable)

Elite Dangerous (2014)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: ?
HUD: 16:9

Euro Truck Simulator 2 (2012)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9

Everspace (2017)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 16:9

Firewatch (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9

For Honor (2017)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 16:9

Ghost Recon Wildlands (2017)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: 16:9

In game cutscenes are 21:9, pre-rednered ones are 16:9

Grim Dawn (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9*
HUD: 21:9

Cutscenes are pre-rendered.

GRIS (2018)

Native Support: No
Solution: hex edit

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9*

In-game cutscenes are proper 21:9, opening and closing cutscene are 16:9 and cropped to fill the screen.

Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice (2017)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: -

Perfect support including all cutscenes.

Lord of the Rings Online (2007-)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: -
HUD: 21:9 (fully customizable)

Lord of the Rings: War in the North (2011)

Native Support: No
Solution: Flawless Widescreen

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: ?
HUD: 16:9*

Game does not support resolutions higher than 1920x1080, so generally a huge mess. I don't remember how cutscenes were working.

Lords of the Fallen (2014)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9

Mad Max (2015)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9
HUD: 16:9

Photo mode not supporting 21:9.

Metin 2 (2004)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: none
HUD: 21:9

Metro Exodus (2019)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (2014)

Native Support: No*
Solution: Flawless Widescreen

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: 21:9

Native support is very strange and chaotic.
In-game cuscenes are 21:9, main pre-rendered ones are 16:9

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (2017)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9
HUD: 21:9

Cutscenes are pre-rendered 16:9

Murdered: Soul Suspect (2014)

Native Support: No*
Solution: Flawless Widescreen

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: ?

By default the game is zoomed in to fill the screen. Flawless Widescreen fixes everything.

Need For Speed Most Wanted (2005)

Native Support: No
Solution: .ini fix

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 16:9

NieR: Automata (2017)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: 21:9

In-game cutscenes are 21:9, pre-rendered cutscenes are stretched 16:9.

Nihilumbra (2013)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: 21:9

Some effects in cutscenes may be to narrow to fill the entire screen. They are neither 16:9 or 21:9.

No Man's Sky (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: ?
HUD: 21:9*

HUD is stretched, as well as menus, inventory and etc. I don't remember any cutscenes in this game.

Ori and The Blind Forest (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: in the middle of a screen for all resolutions

Originially you needed a fix, but Definitive Edition supports 21:9 natively.

Ryse Son of Rome (2014)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: 21:9

In-game cuscenes are 21:9, main pre-rendered ones are 16:9.

Obudction (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: -

Path of Exile (2013)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: -
HUD: 21:9

Game has very limited camera zoom adjustment which gives very claustrophobic view even with max zoom out. This is especially visible and annoying on 21:9 display.

Quantum Break (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9
HUD: 21:9

Real Boxing (2014)

Native Support: Yes*

Gameplay: 21:9*
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: 21:9

Game zooms in to fill the screen, no fix available.

RiME (2017)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: ?

Rise of the Tomb Raider (2015)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9
HUD: 16:9

Seasons After Fall(2016)

Native Support: No
Solution: .exe file edit

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: -

Some cutscenes may be to narrow to fit entire screen and they end at some point. They are neither 16:9 or 21:9.

Sherlock Holmes Crimes and Punishents (2014)

Native Support: No
Solution: .ini tweak

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9

HUD is stretched a bit.

Sherlock Holmes The Devil's Daughter (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9
HUD: 21:9

Song of the Deep (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: ?
HUD: 21:9

The Crew (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9
HUD: 16:9

The Division (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9
HUD: 21:9 (fully customizable)

The Division 2 (2019)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9
HUD: 21:9 (fully customizable)

The Land of Pain (2017)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: ?
HUD: ?

This game is not released yet, I only played demo, but I think it is imprtant to mention that niche game made by only one person supports 21:9 in beta state.

The Town of Light (2016)

Native Support: No
Solution: .ini tweak

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: -

In-game cutscenes are 21:9, pre-rendred ones are 16:9 (not sure about pre-rendered ones)

The Testment Sherlock Holmes (2012)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9

HUD is stretched.

The Vanishing of Ethan Carter (2014)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9

After choosing 21:9 resolution game lowers FOV so you are getting zoomed in 16:9. You can easily counter that by setting proper FOV in game settings.

The Witcher (2007)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9*
HUD: 21:9

You can fix cutscenes with .exe replacement

The Witcher 2 (2011)

Native Support: No
Solution: Flawless Widescreen or Widescreen Fixer

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 16:9

Ubersampling option won't apply properly in 21:9.

The Witcher 3 (2015)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 16:9*
HUD: 21:9

You can fix cutscenes with .exe replacement.

Titan Quest (2006)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: none
HUD: 21:9

Some flickering on shadows in certain places.

The Witness (2016)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: ?
HUD: ?

I don't remember if his game had any HUD or cutscenes, although I may be wrong.

Tomb Raider (2013)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9*
HUD: 16:9

Cutscenes are zoomed in to fill the screen which means that they are cut on the top and bottom.

Warframe (2013)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 16:9 (not sure about that)

What Remains of Edith Finch (2017)

Native Support: No
Solution: .exe replacement

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: none

Word of Warcraft (2004-)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9

Vindictus (2010)

Native Support: Yes

Gameplay: 21:9
Cutscenes: 21:9
HUD: 21:9

 

Summary

77 out of 80 games supported 21:9 properly (96,3%)
59 out of 77 supported games did it natively (76,6%)
18 out of 77 supported games needed a fix (23,4%)
2 out of 80 games supported 21:9 improperly (2,5%)
1 out of 80 games didn't support 21:9 and couldn't be fixed (1,3%)

46 out of 64 games with cutscenes supported 21:9 cutscenes (71,2%)
(16 out of 80 games with no information or no cutscenes)

43 out of 66 games with HUD supported 21:9 HUD (65,2%)
(14 out of 80 games with no information or no HUD)

Average release year for games tested is 2014,3

Conclusion
 

Numbers speak for themselves. The support rate for 21:9 is very high and above 96% in my case, even despite a very wide sample of 80 diversified games with average release year of 2013, encountered naturally across 3 years of gaming.

Lack of 21:9 support is some of the most overblown issues you can encounter in gaming community and nobody has any numbers to back up their claims. There are many far more significant issues you will encounter.

Interesting example would be 21:9 support that many people are crying about vs support for higher refreshrates that many people are bragging about. If I'd use the same list of games and check the percentage of games that can be driven at 100 FPS+ consistently (so this would exclude games with poor optimization, games hard locked to 60 FPS, heavily CPU bound games and very graphically demanding games), the percentage would be much lower than for 21:9 support, most likely below 70%, even before considering that $1200 2080 Ti is not a realistic setup to test, so I would have to use something like GTX 1080, where just a simple lack of sufficient GPU power would bring the percentage down below 70%, before considering all the factors mentioned above, so final score would likely be below 60%. So percentage of games with 21:9 support is actually much higher than percentage of games where you can realistically take advantage of high refreshrate, if wide sample of diversified games is used for testing. And you can fix 21:9 support, while you cannot fix poor engines and poor optimization. This will be a problem much more frequently than 21:9 support. 

 

Check 21:9 support information by yourself

 

WSGF - huge database of information and fixes for 21:9 and eyefinity/surround even for games nobody heard about
Youtube - write a name of a game with 21:9 or 2560x1080 or 3440x1440 or 3840x1600 addition
My channel - not much of a channel really, I am adding 21:9 support, performance and SLI support gameplay videos when I am bored, so don't expect a lot there
Google - ask uncle Google

[Guest]

Just a heads up can you keep photos in spoiler so we don't have to scroll too much?

[Krzych]

5 minutes ago, deXxterlab97 said:

Just a heads up can you keep photos in spoiler so we don't have to scroll too much?

I expected this request Sure, it is already done.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Krzych said:

I expected this request Sure, it is already done.

Nice post though! Really love it even though I have no UW monitor 

[Krzych]

22 minutes ago, deXxterlab97 said:

Nice post though! Really love it even though I have no UW monitor 

Thanks. I guess it is always nice to see some sensible information provided with effort and on actual data rather than usual subjective assumptions taken right from the ass  

[lieder1987]

This is great, thanks! I have been contemplating going from 2560 x 1600 to an ultrawide 1440 and this has helped me determine that gaming will not be a negative aspect on that want.

 

Great write up.

[J.b091]

Happy Ultrawide monitor user here. Good guide for those who doesn't know much about those monitors.

[Krzych]

Updated for 3 years with ultrawide display, now containing 80 different games

[FmPhenom]

Been using a LG 1440p ultrawide for years and no complaints here. I like it better than  gaming on a 4k 65" Sammy.