Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is finally here, but fans are thinking it may not be able to sustain itself in its current state. The Call of Duty franchise is one that lives or dies by its multiplayer. Although people love the entire package ranging from campaign to zombies, the multiplayer is what keeps the game alive for its full year. If it’s not great out the gate, players have no issue moving on to something else. Rarely does it actually hurt sales in a way that is measurable from the outside as it’s consistently the best selling game every year, but it does impact the reputation of the game.
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Modern Warfare 3 has once again revived the question on the need for skill-based matchmaking (aka SBMM) in casual multiplayer. While SBMM is in a lot of online shooters, fans have noted that Call of Duty’s may be more aggressive. It’s believed that if you perform a little too well for a few matches, the game will aggressively pivot you to being matched into harder lobbies that can actively make the game more difficult. While the series has almost always had SBMM, fans note that in the older games, it wasn’t as noticeable and you could match with people and have it feel like the odds were a bit more random. It also helped that Call of Duty didn’t disband lobbies, ensuring if you were having fun with a good pool of players, you could stay with them. Now, the series has gotten rid of that and forces you to match with new people every game. Fans have stated that the current matchmaking system will “kill” the game and believe that with how aggressive the SBMM is, it will turn people off from playing the multiplayer.
Call of Duty is Call of Duty and it has a lot of stuff going for it with some nostalgia-friendly multiplayer maps returning from the original Modern Warfare 2. Players have complained about SBMM for years and yet, nothing has really changed. It seems these complaints will probably continue to fall on deaf ears. Sledgehammer Games has been quite kind to fans and receptive to feedback, but given this has been a problem for years, it will likely continue to be one. Hopefully, things will change especially with Microsoft now in charge of Activision, but it remains unlikely at this very moment.
[H/T Dexerto]
