A new statement released by Call of Duty today has busted the discussion about skill-based matchmaking wide open, without really saying anything at all.
The statement, first seen in a post on Twitter/X by CharlieIntel, acknowledges the community’s desire to hear more about skill-based matchmaking, but doesn’t mention it by name or go into any sort of detail.
“We know there is a lot of interest in the matchmaking experience, especially around how skill contributes to how lobbies and matches are put together,” the CoD team said in a statement. “Nothing is more important to use than the experience players have with the game, and matchmaking is a big part of that.”
The debate around SBMM has raged for years, and Activision hasn’t really confirmed or acknowledged its existence. The statement doesn’t either, but a line of communication about matchmaking at all is a step in the right direction.
“We’ve been working on our matchmaking system for well over ten years, and we continue to spend a ton of time and energy on improving the matchmaking process,” the statement continued. “This involves people working at our Call of Duty studios, our backend services teams at Demonware, and other groups like our player insights team.”
The CoD team said matchmaking is “a large effort that we’ve worked on for many years” and “combines latency, search time, and skill, along with many other factors, to try and find the best match experience for you.”
“Talking about this topic in detail can be hard, and we haven’t spent the time to pull together all of our work to share with you our insights and improvements over the many years,” the statement said. “We’re looking forward to doing that in the coming weeks after season one launches, and we’ll also make it a part of our ongoing discussions with the community.”
Season one of MW3 begins on Dec. 6, but I wouldn’t hold my breath for any real transparency on how the matchmaking works anytime soon.
