Call of Duty may have finally blinked on SBMM as the Black Ops 7 beta adds a playlist with 'drastically reduced' skill consideration

Three days into the Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 beta, Activision has shared patch notes for a new multiplayer mode with less strict skill-based matchmaking (SBMM). The behind-the-scenes online matchmaking practice, which seeks to pair players with those of a similar skill level, has grown controversial among some competitive FPS fans, and this is the first time Activision has ceded any ground on the issue.

"Like all things in Beta, our collective goal is to gather critical in-game data and feedback to make Black Ops 7 the best experience possible," Activision wrote in the patch notes. "We’re engaging with the community discussion about matchmaking and will be making some updates to our playlist plans."

For today, October 4, the beta will have two playlists for players to queue in⁠—Moshpit and Open Moshpit⁠—both with the same maps and modes. "In Open Moshpit, skill consideration is drastically reduced when matchmaking, with the goal of providing more varied match experiences and outcomes," the patch notes continue. "This playlist will match players with and against players of more varied skill differences than in the current Multiplayer matchmaking system."

The primary critique of SBMM, particularly among more hardcore and high-skill players, is that teams are too evenly matched all the time, encouraging sweaty play and precluding a surprising outcome or unorthodox tactics. With SBMM rankings appearing to persist from game to game on one Call of Duty account, this has the possibility to calcify even more over time.

In ensuring that every match is as evenly balanced as possible, the thinking goes, developers remove a critical element of chaos and fun. Lower-ranked players aren't exposed to higher-level play, and sweaty boys don't get to go hotdoggin' around, stunting on scrubs like an old school CS 1.6 pubstomper.

The fact that SBMM is invisible to players, unlike an explicit competitive ranking, has only furthered distrust and conspiratorial thinking among the player base even though Activision gave an inside look at Call of Duty's SBMM last year. But Activision has, until now, held firm on implementing SBMM. 2024 also saw Activision's publication of a whitepaper that found players actually preferred stronger SBMM when they didn't know it was happening.

Being a beta, this is a time for experiments and doesn't necessarily mean that Open Moshpit or something like it will make its way to the final game. But the deployment of this playlist is still notable as the first time Activision has made any sort of concession to SBMM critics.

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