Finding your Battlefield: Matchmaking in Battlefield 1

What goes into finding you a multiplayer match? What actually happens when you hit “Quickmatch” or look for custom experiences in the Server Browser? Read on to learn about matchmaking in Battlefield 1.

Put simply, we always aim to find you a Battlefield 1 server where you’ll have the most fun playing. This in turn means making several choices in quick succession to get you into a match as fast as possible.

Before starting your search, we allow you to make a couple of choices of what kind of experience you’re looking for. Typically, this would mean picking a game mode, taking us up on one of our recommendations, or going through the Custom Game menu which allows you to pick further options to narrow down your search.

When you are ready to matchmake, we narrow down the search to servers that are closest to your location in your region, but after some time searching we might settle for a game server that is anywhere in your region. We never go outside your local region (with a few exceptions in certain smaller regions) since that can lead to unacceptable ping (latency) and make it harder for you to play.

Get full insight into all Battlefield 1 tweaks on the Update Page

After we’ve narrowed down the server location, we try to find you a server with as many players as possible. Playing with a full team on each side makes for the most fun experience and is how our game designers have envisioned you to play. If we fail to find a full server, we will slowly widen our search to include servers with fewer players on them, eventually coming down to a server with just you on it. Don’t despair if you end up on a server by yourself, since staying put for a short while means other players searching for a match can find you and let you get started.

Our goal of finding you a local, well-populated server wouldn’t mean much if you’re constantly on the losing team. That’s why we consider the skill level of you and your team mates to make the teams evenly matched. When fewer people are playing, there may be a wider skill variation between individual team members, while on the whole teams are kept evenly matched.

Playing together with friends in a party? This will give you stiffer competition. The reason is that we assume that the communication and teamwork in your party is better than the average squad.

Matchmaking also tries to avoid the annoyance of joining matches just as they end. We will prioritise joining matches that have just started, allowing you to have the highest possible impact on your team winning (or losing) the match.

Discuss matchmaking and more on the Battlefield 1 Forums

Thanks for reading. If you have any comments or suggestions on how we could improve in finding you great servers to play on, please let us know.

Joakim Bodin, Lead Software Engineer