How to remove black bars in Star Wars Outlaws

Star Wars Outlaws is a gorgeous game with screenshots that look straight out of a movie, and the black bars are a large reason why. Outlaws forces a 21:9 aspect ratio with black bars by default, but you can thankfully get rid of them and play with a standard 16:9 aspect ratio that fills your entire TV or monitor.

How to get rid of 21:9 black bars in Star Wars Outlaws

If you want to remove the black bars at the top and bottom of your screen in Star Wars Outlaws and make the game fill your entire screen, just open the settings menu and navigate to the display and graphics section. There, you’ll find a setting called “cinematic display mode.” It’s here that you need to tweak a few things to get the best PC settings, too.

This defaults to 21:9 on all platforms, but you can change it to “fill screen” if you want the black bars gone. You can swap back and forth at any time, but this setting only affects gameplay. Cutscenes will always have black bars no matter what you choose.

If you’re worried about framerate, then you’ll be pleased to know that there is no performance hit for removing the black bars and playing Star Wars Outlaws with a standard 16:9 aspect ratio. Whether you’ve chosen quality or performance mode, the game will play exactly the same regardless of your cinematic display mode setting.

While the 21:9 aspect ratio is a nice touch on paper, it’s a tad disappointing in practice. Unlike Death Stranding Director’s Cut — which also features a 21:9 widescreen mode on PlayStation 5 — Star Wars Outlaws does not widen your field of view to show more of the landscape when the cinematic display setting is enabled. Instead, it just crops the 16:9 image with black bars, which can make things feel a bit claustrophobic.

It’s still a nice effect that makes the game look even more breathtaking, though, so we recommend swapping back and forth between the 21:9 and fill screen settings based on your mood. A full screen is great for shootouts at Imperial outposts, while black bars make shady jobs for the galaxy’s most dangerous crime syndicates all the more exciting.