How to Play Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix in Ultrawide Resolution in KINGDOM HEARTS -HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX-?

Kingdom Hearts has finally arrived to Steam, and though that's been great news and all, there was one slight problem: none of the mods from the time in Epic Games are directly transferable without having to make some sort of edit to them. Due to this, many people have banded together to try to "port" the dead mods from the Epic Games store into the Steam version, but it's been a slow process.

Most notable, however, are the super ultrawide resolutions that have been struggling. The Steam discussions are full of people asking for a way to get a 32:9 resolution and there have been some solutions to the 21:9 version, but none so far for the much larger ultrawide. However, after tinkering around, I've managed to get Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix to work on 32:9... including cutscenes! This was all done through magic of the Hex values.

If you haven't messed around with Hex values before, then you must be new to the ultrawide community (welcome!); allow me to induct you. Using a program to edit the direct Hex values of a .exe file (the executable of the game that launches it), you can prompt it to run at a specific resolution and, in some cases, even entirely remove the black bars from cutscenes. The problem? Hex values are complex, kind of confusing, and entirely baffling.

Ultrawide gamers are familiar with Hex values because it has been, historically, the most common way to bypass resolution blockages, but the problem is that it isn't all that intelligible, especially if you're new (I'm still just learning). Thankfully, seeing as this has been a pillar of the community, others have understood it for us just fine and have worked together to find "common" values for specific resolutions. Despite their greatest efforts, however, the most common values aren't always applicable, and such was the case for KINGDOM HEARTS -HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX-.

So, how exactly can you get it to run at 21:9 and 32:9? Well, you'll need to get yourself a Hex editing software (I'd recommend HxD, as it's been my ol' reliable all of these years). Once you've downloaded it, follow these steps:

• Right-click the KINGDOM HEARTS -HD 1.5+2.5 ReMIX- on Steam and select Properties
• Head over to "Installed Files"
• Select "Browse.

Here, you'll find all of the executables that the game uses. Depending on the game you want to modify, you'll want to select the different executables. It's pretty straightforward to know which files belong to which games, but before you do anything, you'll want to grab a copy of the executable and back it up. No, nothing will happen if you get this wrong, and you don't need to do this, but bear in mind that a failure that renders your .exe file useless and you're staring at the daunting 74GB download all over again (or verifying files, which has historically taken longer for me than just a straight-up redownload). The backup is very simple, especially as the heaviest of these files is only about 10MB, so it's a much quicker fix than redownloading the entire game (which took me two hours).

Once you've backed it up, it's time to boot up HxD and drag and drop your .exe into it to receive the scariest-looking screen ever: numbers, letters, and it all doesn't make any sense. Thankfully, this process is actually really easy, and it's much scarier on paper. Follow these steps:

• Head over to the top of the HxD window and dropdown "Search"
• Select "Find"
• On the Find window that opened, click the "Hex-values" tab
• In the "Search for" field, input the following text: "00 00 10 41"
• Select the "Search Direction" to "All" (it should be defaulted to "Forward")
• Click "Search All"

If you did this right, you should see a highlighted 00 00 10 41, but bear in mind that not all have to be replaced. At the bottom of the scary numbers is a sub-window, where you'll see "Results" and "Search (11 hits)", which should show every instance of 00 00 10 41 that exists in this .exe. For Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix, you'll need to double-click the one that has the Offset "5A764C". The new highlighted string of numbers (still just "00 00 10 41") is the one you're going to want to replace.

This next part is what feels scary to do, but don't fret, and bear in mind it's not too late to make a backup at this point. Click behind the 1 of "10" and begin typing the following numbers: "90 40". If your numbers go red, then don't panic — you did it! The original string of text 00 00 10 41 should now read 00 00 90 40; go to the top-right, click File, and then hit Save. If you want to get the game to run in 21:9, instead, you’ll want to replace all of the numbers with 7B 14 D6 40. So instead, it should now read 7B 14 D6 40 rather than 00 00 10 41!

If you did this all right, your executable should be untouched, and when you launch the game, it should be in 32:9 resolution, just bear in mind that you'll have to make it past the title screen to see this change reflected.