SBMM stands for skill-based matchmaking: the game looks at how well you have been playing and tries to put you in a lobby with players of a similar level. It is the reason a good session is often followed by a much harder one.
The short answer for Warzone in 2026: casual Warzone no longer runs on skill-based matchmaking. It moved to Open Matchmaking with Season 1 on 4 December 2025, following Black Ops 7. Skill is now minimally considered outside ranked queues. Most guides still tell you to fight a system that is no longer there.
What SBMM actually measures
Activision has published two papers on how Call of Duty matchmaking works, in January and July 2024. They are worth reading because they contradict a lot of what gets repeated about SBMM.
The headline point is the order of priority. Skill is not the main input:
- Connection and ping carry the most weight. The system would rather give you a fair server than a perfectly matched lobby.
- Time to match comes second. Waiting is treated as a worse outcome than an imperfect lobby.
- Skill is one input among several, built from your recent performance across playlists.
- Input type (mouse and keyboard against controller) is also taken into account.
Activision also ran a test on roughly half the player base with skill matching loosened, without telling anyone at the time. Their conclusion was that matches got worse for most players, not better, which is why they kept skill in the formula for multiplayer.
What changed in December 2025
Black Ops 7 shipped with Open Matchmaking, and Warzone adopted it in Season 1 on 4 December 2025. Under Open Matchmaking:
- skill is minimally considered in casual playlists
- connection and ping are prioritised
- lobbies are far more mixed, and persistent lobbies came back
- skill-based matchmaking is kept for ranked queues, which is where it belongs
So a Warzone battle royale or Resurgence lobby in 2026 is close to what Call of Duty lobbies looked like before SBMM became the default: a genuine spread of levels, and the occasional match you have no business being in, in either direction.
So is SBMM still in Warzone?
In casual modes, no, not in any meaningful sense since December 2025. In ranked, yes, and deliberately so: matching by skill is the entire point of a competitive ladder.
If a lobby still feels punishing, it is worth separating two different things. Open Matchmaking makes lobbies more random, not easier. A random lobby contains plenty of players better than you, and without skill matching to smooth it out, you meet them sooner.
What about VPNs?
This is the advice that has aged worst. Routing your connection through another region to land in a softer lobby was always a poor trade, and with Open Matchmaking it buys almost nothing:
- connection quality is the most heavily weighted input, so degrading it is the one thing that reliably makes your matches worse
- higher ping means you lose trades you would have won
- you end up on servers in another region, with teammates you may not share a language with
- it puts your account at risk for no gain now that casual skill matching is largely gone
If you played Warzone before December 2025 and stopped because every match felt like a tournament, the honest answer is that the thing you left has changed.
The part that did not change
Open Matchmaking fixed the lobby. It did nothing about the other half of the problem: who you queue with. A random trio is still a random trio, and in a battle royale a teammate who drops hot and leaves at the first down costs you the game just as much as a stacked lobby ever did.
That is the part GameVerse works on. It matches you with players by rank, schedule, comms style and playstyle rather than dropping you next to whoever queued at the same second. If Warzone is your game, the Call of Duty Warzone page is the place to start, and you can look for a Warzone duo or a Warzone trio directly.
FAQ
What is SBMM in Call of Duty and Warzone?
SBMM, or skill-based matchmaking, groups players of similar recent performance into the same lobby so matches stay balanced. In Call of Duty it is one input among several: Activision's published papers put connection and ping first, time to match second, and skill after those.
Is there still SBMM in Warzone in 2026?
Not in casual playlists. Warzone moved to Open Matchmaking with Season 1 on 4 December 2025, where skill is minimally considered and connection is prioritised. Ranked queues still match by skill, which is the purpose of a ranked ladder.
Why do players hate SBMM?
Because it removes the variety of a normal evening: every match lands at the limit of what you can handle, a good run is answered by a harder lobby, and playing with friends of different levels drags the whole group into matches that suit nobody.
Does a VPN bypass SBMM in Warzone?
It is not worth it. Connection quality is the most heavily weighted matchmaking input, so a VPN mostly degrades the matches it is supposed to improve: higher ping, servers in another region, teammates you may not share a language with, and a risk to your account. Since December 2025 there is also far less skill matching left in casual Warzone to escape from.
What did Activision actually say about matchmaking?
Activision published two matchmaking papers in 2024. They state that connection and time to match outweigh skill, that input type is considered, and that an experiment run on about half the player base with skill matching loosened produced worse matches for most players, which is why skill stayed in the multiplayer formula.