Ultrawide tips for game devs? Best and worst treatments?

[dock]

I'm a dev working mostly on third person games, and I'd like to support ultra-wide in my game. I want to prepare for it from the outset, and I figured it might be useful for other developers too.

Which games do a good job with this? I mostly work on third person games with relatively high cameras, so closer to Mario 3D World than Assassin's Creed. This seems like an especially difficult camera angle to get right without a lot of camera micro-management from the player. Is ultra-wide mostly intended for first person games and close range action games played at a desk?

- Any games in particular that allow ultra-wide, but are too badly optimised to play like that?
- Do any third person games do a good job with a camera above head height?
- Do HUDs go to the corners or float around the middle of the screen? The corners seem like a bad idea if you have to turn your head.
- 32:9 vs 21:9 - which aspect ratio should I be designing for? Are 32:9 monitors common?

Any general suggestions of tips or resources would be good too.

 

[Darío]

- Do HUDs go to the corners or float around the middle of the screen? The corners seem like a bad idea if you have to turn your head.

Click to shrink...

I'd just make it an option/slider to adjust how much the HUD should be separated from the edges of the screen. This really depends on the type of ultra-wide monitor and player preference.

- 32:9 vs 21:9 - which aspect ratio should I be designing for? Are 32:9 monitors common?

Click to shrink...

I'd just design around the vertical field of view being static and make the horizontal one as wide as the monitor is. Make sure to do the math in code as well, because ultrawide resolutions have these fractions but they're not all the same (e.g. 2560x1080 is not the exact same aspect ratio as 3440x1440 despite being marketed as 21:9).

Whether this approach works or not kind of depends on the genre and what the game needs tho. Personally I found DKC Tropical Freeze on CEMU to work really well with an ultrawide hack because almost everything in the game runs in a global timer, so stuff that was usually off-screen still worked properly. Only problem was missing geometry in some spots, but you can probably account for that more easily in a third person game with a free camera.