Treyarch dev says all CoD games have had SBMM, says it can be ‘tuned’

Treyarch’s Director of Technology Martin Donlon has spoken out on Twitter after fans have complained about SBMM in Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.

A fan wrote that several original Call of Duty games did not have SBMM which made the experience enjoyable. In a tweet, he said that Black Ops 2 ‘felt amazing’ because there was ‘no SBMM.’

SBMM is also known as Skill Based Matchmaking, a system where players are matched based upon their skill set and stats versus prioritizing connection in matches.

Donlon says that all Call of Duty games, including Black Ops 2, had SBMM. He says he ‘wrote the implementation’ of SBMM in Black Ops 2.

Fans followed up saying Black Ops Cold War’s implementation, similar to Modern Warfare, appears to be a bit extreme. Donlon says that is a ‘perfectly’ valid viewpoint to have.

He also says that SBMM is just ‘one’ of the several parameters in matchmaking that can be fine tuned. It’s not just an on or off switch for it.

It’s not clear if his tweet is confirming that there will be changes to SBMM in Black Ops Cold War as of now.