What’s the difference between the Open and Standard playlists in Black Ops 7?

For the first time in the series’ history, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7‘s multiplayer will feature two distinct playlist types: Open and Standard. One focuses primarily on connection-based matchmaking, the other incorporates skill. Here’s how they work.

What is the Open Playlist in Black Ops 7?

The Open playlist could also be called the connection-focused playlist, as, according to Treyarch, it only lightly considers your in-game skill rating when matching you against other players. It will instead try to place you in lobbies that offer the best possible connection between you, the other players, and the server.

The goal here is to ensure the best possible hit detection and the lowest possible lag in gunfights. Fewer deaths around corners, more accurate shots actually hitting and damaging the enemy, and so on.

The game still utilizes SBMM (Skill-Based Matchmaking) in the Open Playlist, but to a much lesser extent. In previous titles, SBMM tried to split teams evenly along skill levels such that you would average a 50% win/loss ratio.

That system made it possible for highly skilled players to be placed alongside far weaker teammates, and if the opposing team were spread more evenly, it would probably result in a stomping for the stronger player.

With the new system in place, matches should be a bit more random in how teams are assembled and give stronger players a better chance of doing the dominating without needing to worry about how much their teammates are dragging them down.

What is the Standard Playlist?

The Standard playlist maintains the far stricter SBMM of previous titles, favoring more even team composition based on player score-per-minute and other performance metrics. However, as a separate playlist on a different screen from Open matchmaking, only those players who want the heavier skill-based lobbies are liable to go there.

It remains to be seen whether splitting the matchmaking in this way will cause a major split in the player base, but generally, it seems players are happy with the change.

What’s less clear is whether what the community coined as Engagement-Based Matchmaking (EOMM) is still in effect. EOMM, in layman’s terms, was a supposed additional layer of SBMM that pushed even harder for a 50/50 win/loss ratio while also favoring placing players together based on the skins they were wearing.

If players are just satisfied enough with how their matches are going, the logic went, they’d keep playing. And the more they played with people who shelled out real money for skins, the more likely they were to pony up as well.

It’s also unclear if the SBMM changes being made at the launch of Black Ops 7 will remain in place for any length of time, or if the system will revert to its previous state from the last several years of Call of Duty titles. Hopefully, it doesn’t.