Warzone Companion App is allowing players to avoid SBMM

Call of Duty: Warzone's Companion App is sparking outrage due to the negative effects it could have on competitive integrity (Image via Activision)
Call of Duty: Warzone's Companion App is sparking outrage due to the negative effects it could have on competitive integrity (Image via Activision)

Call of Duty: Warzone may have a new way to exploit skill-based matchmaking with the release of the Companion App.

The Companion App for Warzone was recently released, and it's sparking some outrage as players have figured out how to exploit it in order to get past SBMM in some form.

When someone joins a Warzone lobby, they can see all of the stats of the players in the given lobby right away.

This also means that players can use those stats to see what the average K/D for the lobby is. If the K/D of that lobby is too high, then players can simply leave and queue for a new game until they get into a game that has a low K/D and a much higher chance of victory.

It's an exploit that can be used as a competitive player to win more games, or as a casual player to avoid stressful lobbies and potentially cheaters.


SBMM in Warzone and Call of Duty

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As always, Activision has refrained from commenting on the situation. They technically have never confirmed how exactly the SBMM in Call of Duty works. Rather, there have been developers who have come out and said that SBMM has existed since Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, but that doesn't confirm the degree of strength being used now.

For anyone who doesn't know, SBMM in Call of Duty or simply just Warzone will place players into matches based on their stats. Players with low stats will face players with similar stats, and those with high stats will face the sweats in the game. Because of that, many streamers such as TimTheTatman, CouRageJD, and Nadeshot have expressed concern over the level of SBMM in Warzone and Call of Duty.

Higher-level players certainly experience far more difficult lobbies that can result in frustration, especially after a break from the game. However, SBMM probably does help the majority of the player base, which is the tough reality of the situation.

Activision has plenty of player data that the public will never see, and it more than likely indicates that casual and new players stay more often when they aren't getting stomped.

Until Activision gives the player base more concrete information or decides to make a change, many players are going to be left using tactics like the Companion App in order to save themselves some grief.

Warzone already has enough issues with the meta and cheaters, so one more problem shouldn't be too much.

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