MW3 community rages as devs stay silent on controversial matchmaking

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 players are making their voices heard about the game’s “insanely aggressive” skill-based matchmaking system, yet they’re hearing nothing in return.

Skill-based matchmaking (SBMM), a system intended to match players of similar skill levels, has been a polarizing feature in the Call of Duty franchise for years.

Now, with the release of Modern Warfare 3, players have been expressing their frustration with the game’s aggressive implementation of SBMM, stating that it detracts from their gaming experience by making matches overly competitive and less enjoyable.

The community has been seeking a response from the game’s developers about the game’s matchmaking and took their chance to flood the comments section of a recent AMA with the devs on Reddit.

The amount of scrolling Sledgehammer Games has to do to find a question to answer in this MWIII AMA thread that is not SBMM is insane. Activision, just say something about it on record already. This is so dumb.

— Keshav Bhat (@KeshavBhat) November 20, 2023

However, as the AMA unfolded, it quickly became clear that Sledgehammer Games had been advised to steer clear of any SBMM-related questions.

Despite countless questions and comments from players seeking clarification and expressing their frustrations, the devs remained silent on the matter and refused to give updates regarding the controversial matchmaking system.

However, the silence shouldn’t have come as a surprise to fans who have been paying attention. Recently, Repullze, a Call of Duty streamer who hosted a live stream with the creators of Modern Warfare 3, was told that he couldn’t ask about skill-based matchmaking.

For now, addressing skill-based matchmaking concerns seems to be completely off the table, leaving many players furious with the game’s current state.

Repullze says Activision told him he can't ask CoD devs about Skill Based Matchmaking. One of the biggest issues the community has, and they still won't talk about it almost 4 years later. Yikes.

— Keshav Bhat (@KeshavBhat) November 17, 2023

However, although Sledgehammer Games developers didn’t address SBMM directly in the AMA, they came close to doing so on one occasion as they revealed plans to test non-disbanding lobbies in a future game update.

“In a future game update, we’ll be testing non-disbanding lobbies with a cohort of players to determine the performance of such a change. If these tests go well, we’ll explore a rollout to all players,” they wrote.

It remains to be seen whether this change is enough to satisfy the many fans who have been calling for changes, however.