Skill-based matchmaking, usually shortened to SBMM, is a system that builds your lobby around players of a similar level instead of picking opponents at random. Nearly every large competitive game uses some version of it.
It is also the most argued-about mechanic in online gaming, and in December 2025 the biggest franchise using it walked a large part of it back.
What SBMM actually does
A matchmaker has to choose who you play against. SBMM adds your recent performance to that decision, so a lobby tends to contain players who are close to your level.
The intent is a balanced match. The objection is not that the idea is wrong, it is that a matchmaker tuned tightly around skill produces a very particular feeling: every session sits at the edge of what you can handle, and nothing ever feels easy.
What players object to
These are the three complaints that come up everywhere. They are what players report, not measured effects.
Getting better makes the game harder. Improve, and the lobby improves with you. The reward for skill is opponents who match it, which can feel like running to stand still.
A good session gets corrected. Play well for a few matches and the next ones are tougher. Whether that is the matchmaker reacting or ordinary variance is hard for any individual player to tell, which is part of why the argument never ends.
Playing with friends of different levels is miserable. A group is usually matched somewhere around its strongest member, so the beginner you invited spends the evening being outclassed.
A correction to an earlier version of this article
An earlier version of this page presented several figures as findings from Activision's 2024 matchmaking paper, including that the top 10 percent of players face matches 3.4 times harder, that session length drops 42 percent by the fifth consecutive game, and that grouped players report 58 percent more positive sentiment. We could not source any of them. They have been removed rather than reworded.
It also carried a sentence in quotation marks, "SBMM is fair, but perceived as punitive", attributed to Activision. We could not find Activision saying that, and it should not have been presented as a quotation.
The same version claimed each Valorant agent carries its own MMR, so switching agents dilutes your rating. Riot has stated that the agent you play does not affect your MMR, which is a single hidden rating per account. That advice was wrong and is gone.
What is actually documented
Activision published two matchmaking papers in January and July 2024. What they say:
- connection and ping are the most heavily weighted factors
- time to match comes second
- skill is one input among several, not the driver
- input type, mouse and keyboard against controller, is considered
The company also ran a test on roughly half its player base with skill matching progressively loosened, without announcing it at the time. Their reported conclusion was that matches got worse for most players, which is why skill stayed in the formula for core multiplayer.
Activision has also publicly denied using engagement-optimised matchmaking, the theory that lobbies are arranged to maximise playtime rather than fairness. That theory circulates widely and is worth knowing about, but it is a community accusation, not something the company has conceded.
What changed in December 2025
Black Ops 7 shipped with Open Matchmaking, and Warzone adopted it in Season 1 on 4 December 2025. Skill is now minimally considered in casual playlists, connection and ping are prioritised, and persistent lobbies came back. Ranked queues still match on skill.
This matters beyond Call of Duty. The largest franchise in the genre tested the loudest complaint against SBMM and shipped a change in response. Whether other publishers follow is an open question; nothing comparable has been announced for Valorant, Apex or Fortnite, which all still match on skill in their casual modes.
What actually helps
Two of the tactics that circulate are worth avoiding. Reverse boosting, deliberately losing to lower your rating, breaks the terms of use of every game it is used on and risks your account. VPNs and region switching trade away connection quality, which in Call of Duty is the single most heavily weighted matchmaking input, so they tend to make matches worse rather than easier.
What does change your experience is who you play with. Matchmakers build a lobby around a group rather than around each member, so a settled group sets the level you play at instead of inheriting it from strangers. More to the point, a group that communicates and stays to the end of the match turns a coin-flip into a game you can actually influence. That holds whether or not the game uses SBMM, which is why it is the one piece of advice that survived the December 2025 change.
Finding that group is the hard part. That is what GameVerse does: it matches you on game, mode, region, cross-play and the way you like to play, relaxed or competitive, across Valorant, LoL, CS2, Apex, Helldivers 2 and more.
For the Call of Duty specifics, see what SBMM is in Call of Duty and Warzone and what Open Matchmaking changed in Warzone.
FAQ
What is SBMM?
Skill-based matchmaking is a system that builds your lobby around players of a similar recent performance rather than picking opponents at random. Most large competitive games use some form of it, though how heavily skill is weighted varies a lot between them.
Why do players dislike SBMM?
Because improving makes the game harder rather than easier, a good session tends to be followed by tougher matches, and playing with lower-level friends is unpleasant since the group is matched around its strongest member.
Is SBMM still used in Call of Duty?
In ranked, yes. In casual Warzone playlists, not in any meaningful sense since 4 December 2025, when Warzone adopted Open Matchmaking and skill became minimally considered. Other games, including Valorant, Apex and Fortnite, still match on skill in casual modes.
Does Activision admit its matchmaking is built for engagement?
No. Activision has publicly denied using engagement-optimised matchmaking. Its two 2024 papers state that connection is the most heavily weighted factor, time to match second, and skill one input among several.
What actually helps against SBMM?
Playing with a settled group. Matchmakers build a lobby around the group rather than each member, and a team that communicates and stays to the end changes the match more than any lobby trick. Reverse boosting and VPNs are not worth it: the first risks your account, the second degrades the connection quality that matchmaking weighs most.