There’s no doubt that skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) has been a hot topic in recent years. Now players looking forward to a new title are wondering, “Does XDefiant have SBMM?”
Many fans often take hard stances on whether or not it should exist, and if it does, at what strength it should be applied. In this article, we’ll tell you where XDefiant sits.
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The fans want to know — does XDefiant have SBMM?
XDefiant is an upcoming free-to-play shooter from Ubisoft that has been likened to Activision Blizzard’s Call of Duty. Some have even been as confident as to dub the game the “Call of Duty killer.”
In terms of answering the does XDefiant have SBMM question, we got that answer directly from the developers.
In a Q&A blog post from October 2022, the developers stated that casual XDefiant would not feature any sort of SBMM, but ranked will of course still have a system of sorts in place.
“First, it’s important to note that we will have both Casual play and Ranked play. Ranked matchmaking will obviously be based on your rank, but in casual play matchmaking will be based on ping. There will be no SBMM in Casual,” the post reads.
They did add the caveat that new players would initially be placed in a “Welcome playlist,” but once you reached a certain level you would be moved into the regular casual lobbies.
If you’re worried that you won’t be able to hang outside of the welcome portion, don’t worry, they’re open to creating “a secondary matchmaking pool for lesser skilled players.”
Once in the game, teams will be balanced “based on a hidden MMR (Skill). So that each team in a match has a fair chance to win.”
If you’re wondering why Ubisoft decided to take this route, look no further than this post from Mark Rubin, an executive producer on the title.
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