Prior to the launch of Call of Duty Black Ops 7, Treyarch made headlines when they announced that they would be tweaking their matchmaking system for the first time in years, reducing its focus on player skill in favour of connection quality – closer to that of OG COD’s matchmaking system. With Modern Warfare 4 on the horizon, Activision are making further changes to how they match players; further reducing SBMM in certain modes.

Taking to Twitter to make the announcement, the official Call of Duty page shared the following: “Over the past year, we've continued to learn a lot about Multiplayer matchmaking through player data and community feedback. We’re also excited to see all the recent love for Black Ops and Black Ops II, which reinforced that there are many elements of those experiences that players appreciate.”

With this in mind, the team revealed that “Starting this week with Season 05, we're updating Black Ops Classic, Quick Play, and Party Games in Black Ops 7 with a new matchmaking system inspired by those classic games.”

They concluded by stating: “We'll continue to offer Open playlists in Black Ops 7, and we'll also include Open playlist options in the upcoming Modern Warfare 4 Beta. Thanks for your continued feedback as we stay focused on player experiences that go beyond expectations. Jump in and let us know what you think.”

As mentioned, Black Ops 7 already includes an open matchmaking option, which deprioritises skill in many instances. That said, it remains far from perfect, and so it is interesting and encouraging to see Call of Duty trying to get closer to their more classic matchmaking experiences – especially in the wake of Black Ops 7’s Classic Mode and the revivals of BO1 and 2 on PS5.

Hopefully these changes are immediately noticeable. We’ll find out soon enough when Black Ops 7 Season 5 launches later today.

KitGuru says: What do you think of Black Ops 7’s open matchmaking? Is it a good enough compromise? Or should they go back to entirely connection-based matchmaking? Let us know down below.