Rose
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Every 2022 solution from me in one place
🕑 Added 2022-12-23 23:27:02 +0000 UTCOriginally, this was going to be in my end of year post but as I wrote it, I realized just how long it was getting. I think I counted over 40 solutions! Here is the breakdown!
The very first solution was not particularly striking, as it was for a rather unique Unity game called The Pedestrian.
The second one was much more interesting - the one for Omikron: The Nomad Soul. It was special in that it was the very first widescreen solution for the game since its release in 1999, and it was simultaneously for 16:9 and wider users. Needless to say, I had not dealt with this engine before, so it was purely brand new research at its core. Then I removed the black bars from Gods Will Fall and improved the FOV scaling in Bright Memory: Infinite upon a personal request. Another notable one was the fix for Assassin's Creed Syndicate. You may know the story from my dedicated post, but to recap, to even get somewhere, I first had to disable its anti-tamper protection, which was possible thanks to research by SunBeam, then I went for the more usual assembly tricks to remove the black bars from the cutscenes in this game that originally didn't even have them (like another game we'll get to in a bit!). What a disaster, right? Now in the past tense.
Then I fixed Mirror 2: Project X, an erotic match-3 game, for some reason hugely popular in China. Nothing extraordinary for the fix itself, but the highlight there was my request for Chinese translation of its description. Sadly, it hasn't resulted in much visibility - I suppose a platform like GitHub is still foreign to China and I have no means of interacting with the Chinese users directly.
Next up was the fix for Expeditions: Rome, which involved an unorthodox approach via shader manipulation.
It was followed by the solution for the acclaimed comedy Not for Broadcast, then the solution for Dreamscaper, which involved me effectively cutting out the poorly made developer function made specifically for ultrawide in order to achieve the same thing properly.
The next highlight was the fix for Sifu, an unexpected hit on the Epic store. The solution has been downloaded 5,000 times. The game itself was on a familiar engine but still required going around its weird calculations to make them right. HaYDeN also released a fix for it a bit later, and him talking about one of the issues inspired me to improve mine. As we saw before, a successful mod is quite likely to push developers to consider improving the base game, which is precisely what they did in this case. As it stands now, the main camera field of view issues are officially fixed, but my mod remains useful for correcting the FOV of the cutscenes, particularly prominent at 32:9 and wider. The real-time FOV changer included with the fix is also helpful in increasing the otherwise low FOV of the game.
Moving on, I made Infernax a bit more tolerable, then responded to another request about an older game from before 16:9, which is how we got to the imperfect fix for Combat Wings: Battle of Britain.
The next one was for Young Souls where I fixed the main issues but then further improved the fix by removing the horizontal bars thanks to Lyall's research posted on WSGF. An interesting thing was that my fix built via the Microsoft Store version didn't work for Steam, so I had to get a Steam copy on top of the Game Pass access to look into that one. It was insignificant differences in the code that still required some time to locate the same functions. Thankfully, the 'extra' copy was covered by a donation, allowing me to maintain this fix irrespective of the game status on Game Pass.
Going further, I did a bit of a self-service and tackled the UI and, less importantly in this case, the black bars in The Sexy Brutale just as I was about to play the game at a friend's recommendation.
Then came another highlight resulting in nearly 4,000 downloads - the release of Tunic, a highly acclaimed and arguably a very unique and deep game built just by one person. Once more, a familiar engine but no familiar solution. For Unity, we usually get to see the code in a readable format, but not in this case, so I just resorted to my trusted diassembly approach and after a while found the culpable functions in order to remove the black bars.
Perhaps insignificantly for ultrawide users, I then responded to a specific request to tweak and expand the FOV of Far Cry 5, bundling it with an ultrawide fix like one from before me.
Around that time, I saw the early reports of my original and well-known fix and FOV changer for Death Stranding being incompatible with its newly released Director's Cut edition, which also affected the base game. I had to quickly reproduce my past findings not only in the new version but also in the old edition, which took some time but was a success, resulting in 4,500 downloads. I got to clean up some of the old code and fix some mistakes as well.
Next? Another very special release! Manhunt 2 is notably banned all across the globe, but there was a request and I got access to its legal version. I discovered that despite the game having an active modding scene and a bit of a cult-like following, it hasn't had a proper 16:9 or wider fix since its release in 2009. After a lot of digging, I got that done and even slapped on a real-time FOV changer. About 1,400 downloads on two platforms is probably a big number for an old game that is hard to get, right? For all the great, I later found that a prominent modder of its community just used my findings to copy them without any attribution, but hey, by that time I had already got used to that - more on it soon!
The fix for Trek to Yomi benefited 32:9 users, as the game already had 21:9 as its baseline. Nothing too special here. Just as there was nothing too special about the fix for Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansong - until later, when the devs tried to introduce some form of ultrawide support but did it poorly, so again I had to remove their function and return to my own approach for the proper scaling of the field of view.
Now the highlight of the year? The Quarry has the honor. The default behavior was atrocious, as the game was not merely pillarboxed as we often see, but windowboxed at 21:9 and wider. After a while of requests and no solutions in sight, a community member messaged me and offered to get me a copy for the task. I needed to know what I was getting into, so I downloaded the demo and made some findings through that, then accepted the offer and finalized the solution via the full version. It was different from many other Unreal Engine 4 titles, so I was not that surprised by the lack of solutions. It didn't stop me though, and so far the resulting solution has been downloaded nearly 8,000 times, seemingly making it my most downloaded this year. As you know from my earlier posts, for all the appreciation and people satisfied, there just had to be some dark side to it all, and surely it presented itself, as three unrelated users copied versions of my solution and positioned it as their own. Not one, like before, not two, but three? What for? We may never know, but it definitely set another record.
The games that followed and needed to be fixed were on Unity: the unusual case of stretching in Dungeon of the Endless, the black bars removed from As Dusk Falls (another one with no direct code access), as well as Boyfriend Dungeon.
Then I fixed the FOV reduction in the now nominee of The Game Awards, Endling - Extinction is Forever. The fix was nothing extraordinary but can you guess my vote?
Later I purchased Lost in Play just to respond to a request to remove its black bars.
Still following? Remember my remark on how a game update for Syndicate removed its better ultrawide support? To everyone's surprise, Path of Exile joined its rank after about 10 years of having no black bars. It felt like a new management lead came in and decided that suddenly the game is not intended for anything wider than precisely 21:9. Perhaps they were inspired by the limitations seen in Diablo? We can only guess or accept the official explanation, but my interest is that of the community, so I quickly got on it, made possible by already having the game installed, then I put out a fix. That and the backlash across multiple subreddits, Steam discussions and locked threads on the official game forums must have had its impact, as the developers soon expanded the view from the exact 21:9 to better match the common display configurations marketed as 21:9. From then, my fix exists to help 32:9 and 48:9 users, so it's still viable.
The more recent solutions were the black bars removal in South of the Circle, the FOV changer for Road 96 (another one made mainly for myself in light of the really low default FOV!) and the black bars removal in Gibbon: Beyond the Trees (a small indie game that surprised me when over 250 people downloaded the solution, over the 20+ for South of the Circle, for example).
When Mafia: Definitive Edition came out on GOG, I remembered the old requests for a solution and no response - as I probably documented in the dedicated post on here! - so I had to address it as well.
The fix that followed was for Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed, though I'm surprised that it hassn't been in demand despite being so close to the game release. Well, it's there and it pleased the person who had made the request, so that is something!
Conversely, I see the one for Dreamlight Valley as a success with 1,700 downloads. For this one, after initially releasing a trainer, I decided to make the solution more convenient and so I had to think up a new way to inject, which was achieved after a lot of experimenting. GitHub helped for sure! As I recently noted on Ko-fi, the solution has lived through all the major updates to the game, and that means my time invested in making each one more reliable hasn't been for nothing. I made this fix for the community and in response to a request, but then also found myself playing the game and using it too. A win-win!
I feel like we are getting to the very end, but apparently we're still not there!
Return to Monkey Island was not terrible by default in light of its expanded view at 21:9, but it was not exactly reaching 21:9, let alone wider, so I tackled that. The following solution for Beacon Pines was a bit of a personal thing too and got me to play through the game sooner than later, as I already had it installed for the solution.
Another relative success was the solution for Scorn, currently at 1,000 downloads. A very anticipated game since its Kickstarter campaign, so I'm not too surprised!
The fix for The Walking Dead games from Telltale was there to cover the Microsoft Store version.
A Plague Tale: Requiem was also one to have decent defaults with its native ultrawide support, so my solution focused on expanding the view for 48:9, anything beyond or in between.
The solution for Torchlight Infinite was similar to that for Syndicate in that it wasn't merely about the ultrawide problems but also about bypassing or removing the protection. Done and done, as you know!
Then we finally got Uncharted on PC and there were black bars to remove. An engine I had never dealt with before, but it didn't stop me! Another relative success, currently at 1,700 downloads.
The path to the solution for Gotham Knights was not straightforward. For a few days I saw requests upon requests for it but no solution. As you know and as documented in my dedicated posts, on my own I can't even afford to survive, let alone be thinking of purchasing games, however, I still try to do it here and there to help out. The one-off donations and your continued support here are what makes it possible but there is of course a limit to it. So I tried to crowdfund the game, which worked out well and quickly, thanks to its three main contributors! That gave birth to the fix.
At last, we are getting close to the end! The final few are my FOV changer and bundled cutscenes fix for The Evil Within 2, the black bars removal for Gungrave GORE, the fix for Hello Neighbor 2, the rather historic solution for Saints Row IV (its first in nearly 10 years), and of course the FOV changer for High on Life.
Hopefully I didn't miss anything!
Edit: After the post, I managed to create what may be truly the last solution of this year. It's the one for Chained Echoes!
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Rose
Thanks again for joining! You're very welcome!
Hello Rose, Great work for 2022 and thanks again so much !
