Apex Legends‘ matchmaking has recently come under fire once more, with fans taking to Reddit to warn the developers to adopt Call of Duty’s matchmaking system or risk the game’s demise if ignored.
A July 30 Reddit thread ignited a discussion among Apex players about the game’s Skill-Based Matchmaking (SBMM) system. The original post included a screenshot of Activision’s official paper on Call of Duty’s matchmaking challenges, suggesting that Apex might be encountering the same issue—a player base skewed towards higher skill levels. “Some of us enjoy the game but have no way to continue playing without getting matched with the best of the best, which ruins it,” was a claim echoed throughout the thread.
This understandably frustrates casual players and detracts from the experience. The Activision paper on the issue highlights the importance of prioritizing the player experience first: “Players of all levels should have a fun and competitive experience with the game.” It also explains how tracking and balancing player skill in SBMM helps Call of Duty retain players, something that fans of Apex would love to see in their game.
The discussion then shifted to how Fortnite tackles the issue—by introducing casual game modes. “In order to keep players for long periods of time, you have to incentivize them to return,” one user noted, explaining how important it is for there to be casual modes where players can grind out their battle passes.
Players also complained about how Apex lacks exciting new content. One user praised how, in Fortnite, it feels like there’s something new every time you play, unlike Apex: “Apex has felt stale for years now, something changes and it’s boring by the next game. I can’t really explain why but it just feels, meh.”
We can only hope Respawn Entertainment does something to allay these issues. The people have spoken, and there’s no way out of the woods until the developer fixes the game’s biggest problems.
