They're running at a lower resolution than 1920 x 1080,  2073600 pixels for 1920 x 1080p VS 1536000 of their resolution. The game will look as sharp as anything that's running natively at 1080p on the television since it's still using the full horizontal range of a 16:9 1080p TV,  there's no upscaling going on because it's not needed to fill the screen all the way across. It's just leaving the "remaining" pixels from the top and bottom blank on a 16:9 television, since it's not rendering them. Because of the different aspect ratio, those pixels technically don't even exist in the signal, so the television doesn't display anything on them.

However, this reasoning that the design choice apparently "increases the FOV" is complete nonsense. You could still see the game as it is now, without the black bars and it would fill the whole screen if they chose to render at 16:9 1920 x 1080 in the first place. A 16:9 aspect ratio wouldn't have just "zoomed in" the FOV if done properly. The camera distance is what allows one a larger FOV, not the aspect ratio. All you have to do, is have the game render at a 1920 x 1080 resolution, and keep the camera at a distance so that it matches the horizontal FOV of the 1920 x 800 resolution. Remember, there are LESS pixels in this resolution, there would be no need to do any forms of "zooming in" if it were designed from the beginning to be rendered in 1920 x 1080. 1920 x 1080 was probably too much for what they were aiming for though, so they used a smaller resolution to use that extra power on something else, saving 537600 pixels. At least the game will look pretty.

It looks more cinematic, and allows them to have better graphics. That's why it's there.

I dont fully understand this post sorry, how does it make a difference if its made natively in that aspect? I mean if you can have a full 1920x1080 image with the exact same FOV how is it different?

Unless your talking about performance on a fixed hardware then i completely understand how it would change things (i assume this is what you're talking about?)

Yeah this is what i didn't realize, i thought aspect ratios had everything to do with FOV (stupid i know) I never actually had a problem with the black bars, im ok with them in movies and i played beyond two souls and it was fine, didnt even notice them after a bit.

But that was until i found out their basically pointless. If you can have the same FOV in 16:9 full 1080p its pointless right? (other then to improve performance of course) witch is ironic because im a 30fps + bells and whistles guy >>> 60fps less bells and whistles so i should be fine with this right? i guess so...? idk

The problem is that you are using the evil within as an example, but the black bars on the evil within are actually a sham, they are actually covering the top and bottom of the picture, the picture is made in 16:9 and covers the whole screen and the black bars actually cover the tops and bottoms of the picture and are over the picture. The order isn't  like that, it's in native 2.35:1 so the image actually ends where the "black bars" start, they aren't hiding anything and the field of view is wider, to make the order not have black bars you would have to zoom in the picture which would cause you to lose the right and left of the picture as it'll be sitting outside the edges of the tv, lowering your field of view and causing you to lose the edges, just like the first pics in your op show. So yes it is a design choice by the developers to make it more cinematic and it does widen the fov. I hope i explained that clearly.

Edit: Basically the 3 top pictures in your OP explain it properly and the evil within isn't in the same aspect ratio so you can't use it for comparison, what you originally thought before the whole evil within thing was correct and the evil within is just different and has artificial bars added.

Sorry to drag this on, but i think i have a simple way to explain the aspect ratio, and the wider FOV. If you have a smart phone, take a picture in 16:9, then take a panoramic, this is a dramatic example but, you will see that the panoramic has a much wider FOV obviously but you will also notice that the height of the panoramic picture is much less so and you have black bars. This is basically because, in order to fit the whole picture into the screen it needs to be zoomed out because of the width of the X axis but the y axis is the same as in the 16:9 so as you zoom out it seems to shrink. If you zoom back in to fit the y axis onto the screen without the black bars you lose the right and left edges of the x axis... I wish i was good at graphic design so i could just show you with a picture or diagram, but as i said before, the 3 first pics in your OP show that.

I know I'm gonna get my ass handed to me for saying this about the PS4, but it could also be graphical limitations. The games frame-rate could be dropping a lot, and they don't want to retool everything and fix it. BLAM! Cover a chunk of the screen with a couple big black bars so the console doesn't have as much to render and call it "Cinematic." It sure wouldn't be the first time it's happened.

You can definitely have the same FOV with 16:9. See, the resolution is 1920 x 800, they could have kept the EXACT same FOV (it's all about Camera placement and distance), just chose to render at 1920 x 1080, all that will change is the aspect ratio. Now, if it were 2592 x 1080, which would be the same aspect ratio as The Order 1886, it is a larger resolution than 16:9 1080p, and will actually require a "downscale" to fit into a television set with lesser pixels, thus the black bars would make sense there if you want to see the entire image. However, we're talking about something that's an even smaller resolution than a 1920 x 1080 television, this idea of a "loss" of FOV makes no sense. I'd prefer this resolution of 1920 x 800 over something like 1600 x 900 though, because not only are there more pixels, it matches with at least one dimension of a 16:9 1080p television, which in this case would be the horizontal distance, and there won't be any upscaling necessary, it's purely native. They could have also used 1440 x 1080 (which would be 4:3), and the vertical distance is used entirely, meaning that the "black bars" would be placed on the sides. But since the vertical distance is completey used, it will still be pixel per pixel, and be native (unless you stretch it).

This image here is VERY misleading. See, the supposed red "16:9" FOV here is true......if we're talking about a resolution height of 800 pixels, meaning 1422 x 800 (which would be in 16:9 if we zoomed in like the image implies)....even LESS pixels than the 1920 x 800. See here at my terrible photoshop skills, I "drew in" some of the "missing" objects if it were rendering at 1920 x 1080 with the same FOV (actually, it's a larger FOV since there's more on top and below, compared to 16:9 horizontal 1920):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3zxayxheil8o522/Untitled-1.jpg?dl=0

The FOV can still be done as it was in the 2.4:1, all that will change is more pixels on top and bottom, and the aspect ratio will change to 16:9. However, since the game is being rendered at 1920 x 800, "removing" the black bars wouldn't suddenly make pixels fill in, they'll need to render those missing pixels by going 1920 x 1080 instead, FOV doesn't need to change. Unfortunately it's their design, and we'll need to stick to it. I'm sure it'll still be a great experience.........hopefully.

It wasn't until my second playthrough of Dragon's Dogma that I realised it had black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. Perhaps if I'd had dozens and dozens of articles about it I would have seen it immediately.

2.35:1 aspect ratio is not the same as 16:9