A design director at Treyarch has addressed recent controversies surrounding Call of Duty: Black Ops 7‘s skill-based matchmaking, refuting claims about adjustments for the holiday season. The debut of the mega-popular shooter franchise’s newest entry has been among the biggest new games of 2025, already becoming one of the year’s top 10 best-selling releases within only a month. However, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7‘s launch has not been without a fair bit of controversy.
While Black Ops 7‘s launch weekend saw lots of players trying out the game, the game has struggled with retention since its debut. Many reports have cited Black Ops 7‘s sales being significantly lower than the franchise’s previous entry, with opening week sales finishing 50% lower than Black Ops 6. The newest Call of Duty has also seen poor reception from fans, with many criticizing the game’s story and single-player components to the point it was even being review bombed by players. Now, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7‘s online multiplayer is the newest target of fan ire, railing against Call of Duty‘s skill-based matchmaking systems.
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Black Ops 7 Dev Addresses Fan Concerns About SBMM
Call of Duty design director Matt Scronce has responded to fan complaints about the game’s skill-based matchmaking systems. The comment originated with a fan complaining about SBMM in Call of Duty, theorizing that the queues had been altered for the holiday season. Scronce bluntly responded that the systems had not been adjusted at all, quashing the idea that Treyarch had altered the skill-based matchmaking systems to account for holiday players. Skill-based matchmaking, as the name would imply, takes into account a variety of factors ranging from K/D ratio to objective play when pairing players, attempting to match gamers with others of similar skill levels.
Black Ops 7‘s matchmaking has already been a point of controversy for fans, both for SBMM and Warzone‘s new open matchmaking. Skill-based matchmaking has often drawn backlash from fans, with some feeling that the constant efforts to match similarly skilled players makes casual matches too competitive. Treyarch did officially add “open matchmaking” to Warzone on December 4, with the intent of reducing complaints about constant skill-based matchmaking. However, Treyarch confirmed that, not long after open matchmaking’s debut, many Call of Duty fans were already moving back to the Standard Moshpit queue, claiming the system did not feel the same as the version in the open beta.
Black Ops 7 Has Struggled in its Opening Months
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7‘s rocky launch has been coupled with the massive success of one of the franchise’s biggest rivals. EA and Dice officially rolled out the long-awaited Battlefield 6 in October, seeing huge player counts for its release weekend. Battlefield 6 eclipsed 700,000 players on Steam and sold more than 7 million copies within just a few days of its launch, making it the biggest launch in franchise history. The shooter even topped the sales charts for its debut month of October, beating out another gaming mainstay in Pokemon Legends: Z-A.
Though Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has slipped a bit out the gate, the game will look to rebound with more on the way in 2026. Black Ops 7‘s Ranked queue is expected to officially be added to the game following the launch of Season 2 in early February, with Treyarch not sharing any full details about the mode yet. The Season 1 Reloaded update next month was also confirmed to bring an exciting new crossover to the game, with Fallout cosmetics set to be introduced to the game in January. Black Ops 7 will look to right the ship in 2026 with some exciting new content on the way for the game.
- Released
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November 14, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Suggestive Themes, Use of Drugs
