Call Of Duty: Warzone Players Used Companion App To Dodge SBMM

Call of Duty: Warzone players have been using a companion app to cheat the battle royale's competitive matchmaking system. The creators of Warzone Companion, an app that helps players avoid cheaters by displaying K/D ratios before a game, was forced to adjust the stats it displays in pre-game lobbies. Some players were using the stats to back out of lobbies that had players with high K/D ratios.

"Cheaters are one of the worst problems of Warzone and online gaming overall," Dmitry Shymko, the CEO of COD Stats, the company that runs the app, told Eurogamer. "We wanted to help the community and highlight those players that are having extremely high metrics in their previous matches and at the same time give an instrument for players to see that they just might die to the lucky shot."

The app was designed to help players check pre-game lobbies to see if anyone had stats that are only attainable through cheating. Players ended up using the app to avoid unfavorable lobbies altogether. COD Stats issued a patch that now displays the K/D ratio information after the pre-game warmup, among other changes, earlier this week. Now the app can no longer serve its original purpose of helping players avoid Warzone's rampant cheating problem.

Overwolf, an engine for gaming mods where Warzone Companion was available, asked COD Stats to patch the app.

SBMM, or skill-based matchmaking, has been criticized by a number of players for putting them in lobbies with players of equal skill. A trend of "reverse-boosting," where players intentionally die to end up in lobbies with lower-skilled players, has spread around shooters like Warzone.

Call of Duty: Warzone has seen a number of significant problems since the Black Ops Cold War integration. Players have been upset about balance issues with the dozens of new weapons that were added all at once, including the overpowered DMR. A new patch nerfed the gun and added a new playlist for both Warzone and Black Ops Cold War earlier today.