Skill Based Matchmaking has beena contentious issue in games for years. Simply put, it ranks you with players of a similar skill level, which means you’ll face good players if you’re good at the game. If you’re bad at the game, you’ll face bad players. Sounds fair, right? Not to the community, who are again outraged at the newestCall of Dutyfor implementing SBMM.

Fans decry that it has “killed” the series, making it “sweatier” than ever. The general sentiment is that, because high-skill players are facing those in their own bracket, it’s not as fun, since you may’t flaunt your capabilities unless you’re slaughtering 12-year-olds on Christmas. WithoutSBMM, new players would end up in more matches with veterans, making it much harder to catch up, inevitably putting them off.

“Whoever invented SBMM deserves a lifetime in prison,“YouTuber TBag tweeted. “Practically killed the franchise for me.”

“SBMM is actually going to ruin the fifth Call of Duty multiplayer in a row,“YouTuber Nocturnal said.

Fifth is shooting a little low. Former Call of Duty developer Josh Menke confirmed two years ago that SBMM has been present in the series since2007’s Modern Warfare.

That’s a lot more than five games. However, when players raise this point to those angry atModern Warfare 3for continuing to use SBMM, they’re often met with something along the lines of, ‘It’s worse now’.

“Advanced Warfare didn’t drown you in sweat like every game after MW2019,” barisax9 said in response to a Reddit post stating that SBMM is nothing new.

“That’s exactly what people said about it at the time, though,” MassLuca007 replied. “First time I heard the, ‘I can’t enjoy the game cause I’m playing with sweats 24/7’ was in AW”.

Of course, getting rid of SBMM wouldn’t get rid of the sweats, it would just pair them with new players who aren’t as good.

For years now, the argument has been that SBMM should only be present in ranked modes, not casual ones.

However, that again puts pressure on new players who are unlikely to gravitate toward the more competitive modes anyway.

Given that removing it would punish casual players disproportionately, it’s unlikely that SBMM will go anywhere. It’s been in Call of Duty for over a decade now, but that hasn’t stopped fans from calling on Activision to finally axe it.