How To Play GameCube Classics In Full Widescreen Mode On Switch 2

Did you know you can play two out of the three GameCube Classics available on Switch 2 in 16:9 widescreen mode, instead of 4:3 aspect ratio with the dotted black border that’s on every other retro Switch game? Turns out you can! This should make the already excellent GameCube games on Switch 2 even better.

Both Soulcalibur 2 and F-ZERO GX include widescreen support and it’s just a simple toggle in the settings. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker has widescreen support, even on Switch 2. It looks like any supported game will have the disclosure: “About Screen Modes: This title supports 16:9 onscreen display” listed at the bottom of its details summary from the game selection menu.

Playing GameCube Classics Widescreen on Switch 2

Since it’s not a feature supported on every GameCube game released, that means it’s a per-game setting and is not an overall GameCube Classics app setting. I think that’s why I didn’t realize it existed originally, even though I of course remember changing it in supported games as a kid when we got a better TV.

I even went and checked my original case for Soulcalibur 2 on GameCube, which I still have, and sure enough it was a game with Progressive Scan support, so maybe that’s an indication of which games Nintendo may be targeting primarily for Switch 2.

In order to play those GameCube games in widescreen on Switch 2, all you have to do is go into the Options menus for each respective game. In Soulcalibur 2 you can find it under Options > Display Settings > Screen Ratio and on F-ZERO GX you can find it under Options > Screen Mode. That’s it. Just toggle it on and then you can even do a quick save state so you don’t have to ever remember to switch it on again.

And quick shout out to ‘lucasbenboss’ over on Threads for letting me know these settings existed after I shared a clip of Soulcalibur 2 in 4:3 aspect ratio mode.

In a perfect world, more retro games would have actual 16:9 widescreen support without stretching the image, but that’s not the world we live in. Alternatively, I really, really wish you could disable the gradient border on the sides of retro games when playing Nintendo Classics. It’s really distracting and not aesthetically pleasing at all. It would be even better if you could customize the border or just have a few different options.

Which other Nintendo GameCube games do you hope to see on Nintendo Classics for Switch 2? I made a list of 13 more I hope to see added.