The Evil Within Update Adds Remove Letterboxing Option

The Evil Within Update Adds Remove Letterboxing Option

20
Lee Bradley

Around eight months after release, Tango Gameworks has added a new option to The Evil Within that allows players to remove the game's letterboxing effect and play in full screen.

Letterboxing is the super widescreen effect that adds black borders to the top and bottom of the screen, making the image even more narrow. The effect is supposed to add to the cinematic presentation of the game, but many disliked it, hence the addition of the option.

Also featured in the patch is a rebalance of The Evil Within's easiest mode, Casual. According to the Beth Blog, the mode is now "more forgiving to players with increased ammo ammounts and adjustments to the game’s health bar." The patch is out now on all platforms - Xbox One, Xbox 360, PS3 and PS4. 

Comments
20
  • To be honest the letter box removal option should of been available when the game first came out in my opinion.
  • Why mess around with Easy difficulty, when it's AKUMU that needs re-balancing (glares at Chapter 6)?
  • Lol, I platinumed this while complaining most of the time about this letterbox.
  • Better late then never. I still got the executioner to play, so this will be a welcomed sight.
  • Good news, hopefully they'll put FOV adjust in at some point like they did on PC. Really wanted to enjoy this game but those bars and the god awful FOV made it unplayable for me.
  • My brother will like this. I wish they could improve the framerate, or whatever the hell is wrong with it. The looks... laggy. Like loading laggy.
  • Thank god i was well hyped for this game bought it and didn't even play it for 5 mins due to the screen size glad they done this going to re buy it now .
  • Currently playing through this game for the first time and finding it very unpleasant (and not in the way it's supposed to be). Clunky controls, bad camera, frame rate drops, bad hit detection, trial-and-error gameplay and far too many unfair one-hit-death enemies just make it a frustrating chore. And what's with your character having to stand up when he fires a gun? It can even lead to your getting your head cut off in one section. That's some great game design right there. The option to remove those stupid black bars is at least one thing in its favour. Putting black lines on your game doesn't make it look "cinematic". It just makes it look like a video game with a squished screen, which has the added bonus of making it even more awkward to see what you're doing.
  • I actually got to it super quick. As a matter of fact I like being able to see more of my surrounding even if everything is a tad bit smaller. Won't be using that feature, but I was wondering what the patch was for=)
  • Will the actual screen size change, or will it just be a litreral removal of the bars?
  • Got this game day of release (pre-order through E3 deal) and it's still sitting there sealed. haha Then again, so is Assassin's Creed Unity. :/ I never used to be like this.
  • Good. This isn't like the 4x3 days when letterbox actually achieved its effect. What the hell is the point of having giant widescreen TVs if they decide to remove 25% of the viewable area to give me an even wider image ratio? Same deal with The Order. If you want to make a movie, then make a movie. Because having vital button prompts crop out of screen thanks to your aesthetic vision is massively fucking annoying when playing a video game.
  • Finally, those bars sucked.
  • The framerate was all over the place when they were rendering 2/3 of the screen. I wonder how it is now.
  • @12 You sound like someone who also hates pillarboxing. Not everything has to use every square inch of your TV.
  • this option is very welcome, thanks bethesda!
  • @15, trimming what amounts to around 20-30% of the overall area to achieve a "feel" is fine when it's a movie, but as a game, especially an action game, it is frustrating. At no point in playing Last of Us or Uncharted or LA Noire or Heavy Rain or any other profoundly deep and story rich game did I once think "You know, if only they'd letterboxed this game, I'd be immersed in the story just that little bit more".
  • @#17 Wait a second though. What need is there from seeing more screen horizontally? At least vertically you have better idea on what's around you... Now I want to fire up game coz I'm curious if they just zoomed in the screen and cut off portion of sides or actually added extra layer of view on top and bottom of the scree, which seems unlikely...
  • Lol, and just when I had gotten used to it.
  • @18, being able to pick up ammo for one. Bear traps. Basically everything above and below you. I mean if I ran a one inch high strip across the middle of the TV would we all be saying it's ultra widescreen or something? It's not as if they've pulled the camera back from the character like you can in Fallout. It's the same size and view angle as every other action game, they've just run bars across the top and bottom.
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