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The Call of Duty matchmaking debate has raged on pretty much since the beginning of multiplayer. Should matches be comprised of evenly skilled players, if there’s an accurate enough way of ensuring that? Or should skill be stripped out of the equation, so you never know what to expect from the next match?
Both sides of the argument have their valid reasons for their preference, but most recently, in 2025’s Black Ops 7, an option was presented that attempted to satisfy all. While the default matchmaking was set to skill-based, as has been the case since 2007’s game-changing Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, open matchmaking playlists were also available to those who want the opportunity to get teamed up with, and against, anybody.
This year’s Modern Warfare 4, though, has launched without that option, once again placing the matchmaking debate into the spotlight within the COD community. Is there any way to keep everyone happy, then? IGN spoke with Infinity Ward’s Multiplayer creative director, Joe Cecot, who explained that match quality is the priority.
“I don’t know if there’s perfecting it,” Cecot said of matchmaking. “For us, I think the most important thing when we look at matchmaking is that the matches we put together are good matches. And we’re also looking at the players and their experience, and we can look at the data and how it affects things, and we can quantify how it affects a certain group of players or a large percentage of them in a negative way. And so, though we’re not talking about exact specifics on matchmaking, our end goal is that every match is a good match.”
A fairly vague answer, then, and one befitting of the often-shrouded way that skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) works behind the scenes of Call of Duty matches. As previously noted, SBMM has been part of COD since the original Modern Warfare, but players only really started to feel it affecting their online experience once the algorithms were tightened from the 2019 reboot onwards.
On the surface, SBMM seems like a logical thing to want to employ in an online shooter — evenly skilled players being pitted against each other should make for the most exciting, closely contested matches. But the problem comes when you start overachieving and play out of your skin for a couple of rounds, with the algorithm then reacting and placing you in a much higher skill-level match next time up, only for you to have a miserable time getting your head popped off every time you peek around a corner. In theory, it’s a smart system, but in reality, it can lead to whiplash from one match to the next.
Is there any way to perfect it? Perhaps not. But Black Ops 7’s open queue did at least give players the option to roll the dice and opt out of skill-based matchmaking and join open queues if they wanted to. There’s a spot of confusion among the playerbase as to whether this is included in MW4, though — a persistent lobby option is available within the popular modes tab, but it doesn’t state whether this means open matchmaking is in effect. The fact that open matchmaking seemingly isn’t in MW4 at launch, or at the very least isn’t clearly displayed as being present, is therefore a little baffling.
For more on Modern Warfare 4, you can check out our review of the campaign, which will soon have multiplayer impressions added, or what we think of the extraction shooter mode, DMZ, so far.
We’ve got an in-progress Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 Walkthrough to help you through the campaign missions, plus All Collectible Note Locations, and all the Code Solutions you’ll need to open every keypad and container. For multiplayer, check out How to Level Up Fast in MW4 and our Essential Multiplayer Tips and Tricks alongside the Best MW4 Settings we recommend you use. DMZ is back, so we’ve got a handy DMZ Beginner’s Guide, too.
Simon Cardy is a Senior Editor at IGN who can mainly be found skulking around open world games, indulging in Korean cinema, or despairing at the state of Tottenham Hotspur and the New York Jets. Follow him on Bluesky at @cardy.bsky.social.
