Call of Duty: WWII Skill Based Matchmaking Not in the Game According to Sledgehammer Games, YouTube Vid Says Otherwise

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In case you didn’t know, Call of Duty YouTuber Drift0r held a “$1,000 COD: WWII SBMM” challenge wherein he asked the Call of Duty community for help to prove that there’s skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) in the game. Well, he has now published his report video and the results are in!

For those not familiar with skill-based matchmaking, it’s something that’s discussed each and every year a new COD game comes out. Essentially, it’s the game’s matchmaking algorithm matching players with similar skills when joining a match, which some might dig, while others don’t.

Short answer: there seems to be SBMM in COD: WWII, though Sledgehammer Games’ Michael Condrey has vehemently denied it. According to the video below, Drift0r was helped by a uni student who helped him run up the data, and test it. He was even given data by someone at Activision which he mentions he shouldn’t have been given access to.

Drift0r claims that those who rage-quit a lot or who don’t try to win (padding stats, going after challenges) are penalized by getting worse teammates which his data evidently shows. If you have a high win-loss ratio, that should equate to tougher matches, so basically, it’s higher W/L ratio = more challenging lobbies. Also of note, it seems based on their study, connection isn’t that important when it comes to matchmaking as well (study conducted on PC, but data might show the opposite for consoles). The video is 19 minutes long but it’s definitely worth a watch to learn more about what games the game tick.

Drift0r also talked to Michael Condrey, Sledgehammer Games boss who had this to say:

We’ve been adamant from day 1 that SBMM is not in the game. And I’ve checked to make sure that is true because I know the community is really fixated on this. I wanted to make sure that if it came to prove it, you know put up or shut up, that the facts are 100% on the side of Sledge.

Lastly, Drift0r also mentioned that a pro player mentioned to him how when COD: WWII first got released, the pro players and his teammates played Hardpoint. After “smashing” a few matches, they were matched up against more difficult enemies, and even against other pro players. So take from that what you will.

The tl;dr version of this all? Drift0r’s research says there is SBMM in COD: WWII, but Sledgehammer Games denies it, which puts us at a standstill. Whatever the case, you decide on what you want to believe in.

Do you think there’s SBMM in COD: WWII? Do you even care if it has?

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