Overview
- The update, announced Wednesday, begins rolling out with Black Ops 7 Season 5 and replaces the current system in Black Ops Classic, Quick Play and Party Games with a matchmaking model “inspired by” the original Black Ops titles.
- Activision will keep its existing Open playlists that reduce skill-based pairing and will add Open options to the Modern Warfare 4 beta in August for player testing.
- Broader adoption in Modern Warfare 4 is not confirmed and will depend on player feedback from the beta over the coming months.
- Activision is expanding its Ricochet anti-cheat work alongside the matchmaking change, reporting more than 263,000 bans this year to limit cheating and preserve match quality.
- The move responds to long-running complaints that strict skill-based matchmaking made matches feel overly competitive, and it follows strong player interest in recent PS4/PS5 ports of Black Ops 1 and 2 that ranked highly on PlayStation platforms.