I write about many niche topics, such as VR mini golf. ethical mobile games, and occasionally my love for Hollywood’s most subversive blockbuster mega-hit, James Cameron’s Avatar. One of my many bizarre and esoteric passions is one that has been gaining more and more mainstream appeal lately, and one that I predict will be a staple of any gaming setup in a few years. I’m talking about ultrawide screens. Those ridiculously expensive surfboard-length monitors you see at conventions are the next evolution in immersive gaming. If you don’t believe me, play Marvel’s Spider-man in 32:9 for ten minutes and I promise you’ll never be satisfied with a regular widescreen TV again.
I bought my $1,400 42-inch Samsung Odyssey G9 in 2019 to play Destiny 2, which in my opinion is unnecessary and absurd. Three years ago there were very few games that supported a wider aspect ratio than the standard 16:9, and while there are still plenty of games that need tinkering to fit into an ultra-wide version, big triple-A releases have been decent. consistent with 21:9 and 32:9 support in recent years. Sony is largely paving the way with its recent range of PlayStation ports, all of which have delivered an exceptional ultra-wide experience.
Horizon Zero Dawn was the first game where I played super ultrawide and it takes my breath away. The stunning vistas were even more beautiful, spread across a panoramic screen, and the battles between Aloy and the hulking, monstrous machines of the post-post-apocalyptic future took on an even greater sense of scale. Ultra- and super-ultrawide always have an exaggerated curve that adds depth to the image and ensures that your periphery is completely filled, which made playing Horizon Zero Dawn an immersive experience. I wrote at the time that this is the way Horizon was always meant to be played and it is still the first game I recommend to new ultrawide owners. Starting this week, however, Marvel’s Spider-Man Horizon is giving it a serious run for its money.
There are some major improvements to Spider-Man’s PC port that Horizon Zero Dawn was sorely missing. While Horizon presented its cutscenes in the original 16:9, all of Spider-Man’s cutscenes have been scaled and reframed to fit wider resolutions, so you never feel like your screen space is being wasted. Spider-Man also supports ray-tracing and DLSS, which Horizon didn’t. Deep Learning Super Sampling can help you get a lot of extra frames, and if you’re working at 5120×1440 resolution, you’ll need all the performance help you can get. Spider-Man is better optimized and, if you have the hardware to support it, a more visually impressive game than Horizon, technically.
But the biggest advantage Spider-Man has in ultrawide is the way the setting and gameplay complement an extremely wide focal length. While Ultrawide helped you take in more of the beautiful environments in Horizon, Spider-Man gives you awe-inspiring skylines. With the whole of New York City stretched out in front of you, the sense of scale is great. The ability to take in more of the city makes the whole world more dynamic and vibrant. Sitting on the edge of Avengers Tower and looking out over Manhattan is a completely different experience when you see the whole city in front of you. You can’t appreciate how big the world is unless you look at it through a wide enough frame.
This giant display pays for itself the moment you jump off the first roof and start swinging through the city. There is an inherent flaw in all ultra-wide screens because of the way camera lenses work. Real cameras, virtual game engine cameras and even our eyeballs create distortion and stretch at the edges of the field of view. Your brain automatically compensates for this problem in your eyes, but ultrawide monitors greatly exaggerate this distortion at the edges. Fascinatingly, Spider-Man turns this defect into an advantage.
Stretching at the edges increases the feeling of speed and acceleration as you swing through town. As you dive from the tops of skyscrapers and zoom from tree to tree through Central Park, the buildings and features on the edge of your periphery stretch past you, making you feel like you’re moving even faster. Meandering through avenues and alleys is even more exciting thanks to the tunnel effect provided by the aspect ratio. Watch this GameSpot gameplay in ultra-wide 21:9 and then imagine it even wider at 32:9. It’s hard to get across, but once you’ve seen it for yourself, you’ll never want to go back.
Sony’s efforts to support ultrawide on PC will have a major impact on how the industry embraces the format. Of course, as the prices of monitors fall and more and more games are released with ultrawide as standard, the adoption rate will necessarily increase, which in turn will increase the demand for ultrawide games. Much gaming and graphics technology tends to be arcane, but unlike ray-tracing, HDR and DLSS, ultrawide is physical, tangible, and instantly recognizable. When you see a game in ultrawide, you immediately know what it is and how much value you get. It may be a niche today, but games like Marvel’s Spider-Man prove that ultrawide is the way games should be played.
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