Apex Legends pro HisWattson claims matchmaking is designed to make players fail

An Apex Legends player has released a video detailing why the game doesn’t use skill-based matchmaking, but is intentionally sabotaging matches.

Since the release of Apex Legends in 2019, the issue of Skill-Based Matchmaking has been a topic of debate in the community.

Simple referred to as SBMM, many players feel the system brings down the experience for all players by catering to the casual crowd too much.

But now, an Apex Legends player has released a video to discuss how SBMM actually doesn’t exist anymore, but the game does use a system that is intentionally sabotaging matches.

Apex Legends player is accusing the devs of intentionally sabotaging games

The controversy started when HisWattson made a lengthy tweet about how Apex Legends’ matchmaking actually works, claiming that Apex Legends uses Engagement-optimized matchmaking (EOMM) rather than skill-based matchmaking (SBMM) to form lobbies.

As a result, the player’s actual skill level takes a back seat to the idea of starting players in lobbies against weaker players so they perform well at first. Then, over time, the player begins to become one of the weaker players in a stronger player’s lobby, keeping them playing and chasing the high from prior wins.

“Apex Legends trios and duos DOES NOT use sbmm (skill-based matchmaking) it uses eomm (engagement-optimized matchmaking) EA has a patent for this and it is presumably used in all their games.” HisWattson claims. “It does not care about putting you against your own skill level, it wants to dictate when you succeed and when you fail in a way that will keep your brain engaged for as long as possible.”

This prompted a video from ohdoughplays, which was released on Tik Tok originally, and his explanation of the “evil” matchamking system made waves there and on the Apex Legends subreddit, where it was posted to ask the community if what the player was saying is true.

This is a system that, instead of putting people in a match with other players with the same rank or skill level as them, it will purposefully put you in a lobby with players of a lower skill to make winning a rarity in the game for all but the most elite players.

He claims that the devs will “actually sabotage your games” in an effort to make players have to earn a win in a more difficult way.

A lot of the community is agreeing with it as well, with one user explaining: “What he says definitely resonates with my Apex Experience.”

Many fans are even claiming this system in place in other games as well, with one person saying, “It is true and it’s everywhere in gaming now. The longer you’re engaged the higher the chance you will be willing to spend money in the store.”

It appears that the community believes that by making winning harder to accomplish, players are more likely to spend more time playing the game, which will then cause them to buy more cosmetics and items from the in-game stores.

There is no official confirmation about whether or not this is a system that Respawn has put in the game, but there is clearly something bothering the Apex Legends community about how the matchmaking runs.