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  • Are you looking for the first game to do so intentionally? Letterboxing generally happens when your cinematic isn't filmed in the same dimensional ratio as the screen it's being showed on. (The alternative being, of course, trimming the excess content, or stretching to fit and distorting the video.) So are we looking for first instance of intentional letterboxing as some sort of visual effect? Or something else?
    – Roddy of the Frozen Peas
    Commented Jun 29 at 2:12
  • 1
    Ideally yes, the first to do so intentionally. A few generations ago when pre-rendered cutscenes were common I imagine you’d get letterboxes just from playing at a nonstandard resolution. However modern games rarely use prerendered scenes, and letterbox cutscenes to far wider than a standard monitor, making it clearly a stylistic choice to add bars. I’m curious when that became a style rather than a technical limitation.
    – Caketray
    Commented Jun 29 at 2:40
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    @Caketray: I have even seen games apply letterboxing when playing in ultrawide resolution, which looks a bit silly.
    – Kevin
    Commented Jun 29 at 5:50