Black Ops Cold War adds anti-reverse boost feature to protect SBMM

The Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War Beta is finally live on PlayStation 4 for those who pre-ordered digitally, and some people have been noticing that Treyarch sneakily implemented a feature meant to counter reverse boosting that wasn’t in the Alpha.

According to Twitter user and CoD insider @_TomHenderson_ and verified by Dexerto, Treyarch has made players invulnerable to all damage for a few seconds when they spawn in. While the feature has yet to be given an official explanation, or even acknowledged by the devs, this was almost certainly done to combat reverse-boosting.

For those that don’t know, Call of Duty games have skill-based matchmaking, which means that players of similar skill-levels are matched together in order to make a more balanced game. Unfortunately, many don’t like this option because it can make the game a bit tedious and annoying.

Because of this, players “reverse boost”, which basically means they’ll “kill themselves” intentionally immediately when they spawn so that they can trick the game into thinking they are lower-skilled, which then puts them in a lower-skilled lobbies.

• Read more: Black Ops Cold War Beta patch notes: everything changed from the Alpha

Now, fans will have to wait a few seconds in order to “kill themselves” after they respawn. While this won’t completely fix reverse boosting, it will make a bit more annoying for those who do it.

Activision

Players who immediately try and kill themselves when they spawn will find that they won’t be able to.

If they are only carrying one piece of lethal equipment and they immediately attempt to kill themselves, they will have wasted it and will have to go into battle without one until they die and respawn.

• Read more: Best FOV settings for Black Ops Cold War Beta on PS4 & Xbox One

Simply waiting a few seconds will, of course, allow you to continue to reverse boost to your heart’s content. That being said, if Treyarch sees that reverse boosting is still rampant by the time the full game comes out, it wouldn’t be surprising if they end up implementing even more counter-measures in order to stop those players.