How does Apex Legends matchmaking work?

Apex Legends is one of the hottest battle royales, allowing players to take on the role of an ever-expanding list of champions. The game has gone on to inspire an esports league and has drawn millions of players since its release.

However, as with all multiplayer games, some players would like to take a peak under the hood to make sure they’re getting a fair matchmaking experience.

In a recent blog post, Respawn detailed how Apex matchmaking works and how it is intended to create fair matches. Here’s all the information you need to know about how Apex matchmaking works and how you can get better matches.

What factors into Apex matchmaking?

The blog post states Apex currently makes matches using whatever the best player’s skill rating is in your pre-match party, even if it’s just you. It also considers your squad size when matching you with enemies as well. Respawn is currently in the process of retiring its current SBMM system in favor of a new algorithm meant to provide fairer games.

The developer states this is an evolving process where it has planned and already has rolled out updates to the system that it hasn’t publicly shared. The dev bases its matchmaking groupings on progression, skill rating, and matching.

Progression is key to a player’s skill rating, according to Respawn, since it dictates a lot about how a player engages. The skill rating is more standard, giving a numerical representation of the player’s skill. Respawn claims that, in order to determine the scale, they have to look at the wider distribution of skill levels in players, which can show how much better one number is over the other in an Apex match-up.

Using the skill rating, the matching algorithm will determine who’s in your game and group a set of players together for a match. The goal is to balance speed and quality, so players can get in a match quickly that feels fair to play.

The Respawn devs stated it then pairs up a team differently based on what kind of mode they’re playing in. For instance, a public lobby might create a more balanced team of differing skill ratings while a ranked match will group players of similar skill ratings together. This will reduce how much the higher-skilled players have to “carry.”

Respawn is still working on Apex matchmaking

In the future, Apex recognizes players are constantly improving, so some players might not feel like they’re progressing. The developers are keeping in mind how approachable the game is for new players. The new skill rating system is built for accuracy, so the hope is new players will have opportunities to win.

The entire blog goes into more detail and provides diagrams to illustrate some of the points made above. It’s clear Respawn is thinking hard about the matchmaking of Apex, with the hope of improving it for new and veteran players alike.