Joe Cecot said Modern Warfare 4 matchmaking is built around making every match a good match, even as Call of Duty skill-based matchmaking remains a flashpoint for players. Infinity Ward’s multiplayer creative director framed that goal as the studio’s priority while the game launched without a clearly visible open matchmaking option.
“For us, I think the most important thing when we look at matchmaking is that the matches we put together are good matches,” Cecot said. He added: “And we're also looking at the players and their experience, and we can look at the data and how it affects things, and we can quantify how it affects a certain group of players or a large percentage of them in a negative way.”
Joe Cecot on Modern Warfare 4
Cecot also said: “I don't know if there's perfecting it,” and later added that “our end goal is that every match is a good match.” That puts the focus on the quality of the lobby outcome rather than on whether players can easily spot a setting by name.
His comments land in a debate that has existed since the beginning of multiplayer in Call of Duty. Skill-based matchmaking has been part of the series since Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, but the way players experience it has shifted as the algorithms tightened from the 2019 reboot onwards.
Black Ops 7 and open playlists
Black Ops 7 in 2025 included open matchmaking playlists alongside the default skill-based matchmaking. Modern Warfare 4 launched without that open matchmaking option, which makes the launch layout different from what players saw in Black Ops 7.
A persistent lobby option is available within the popular modes tab in Modern Warfare 4, but it is not clear whether that option means open matchmaking is in effect. For players, that leaves the practical question centered on how the game is actually sorting lobbies at launch, not on what the menu appears to promise.
2007 to 2025
The series history runs from 2007, when Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare introduced skill-based matchmaking as part of Call of Duty, to 2025, when Black Ops 7 offered open matchmaking playlists beside the default system. Modern Warfare 4 sits between those two points with a launch setup that does not clearly show the same open option.
That means players checking the popular modes tab are left reading the structure of the menu itself for clues about how the game will treat them online. Cecot’s point is straightforward: the studio measures matchmaking by whether it produces good matches, while the launch presentation leaves players debating how that goal shows up in practice.
