Call of Duty Director Shuts Down ‘Skill-Based Damage’ Claims as Sony Patents System for Maintaining ‘Even Playing Field Between Cross-Platform Players’

The design director of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 has refuted claims of “skill-based damage” after a new Sony patent suggested plans to dynamically adjust player skills — both up and down — for “an even playing field” during cross-platform play.

The patent, published in 2025, describes a system that monitors two players in a single session. “A first valuation of a performance metric measuring gaming effectiveness is determined for the game play by the first player, a second valuation of the performance metric is determined for the game play by the second player,” and if the “difference between the first valuation and the second valuation does not satisfy a threshold band of operation that is based on global skill levels of the first and second players,” the game of the first player would be “augmented” to normalize play between the two.

In other words, if the session doesn’t seem quite balanced, “real-time augmentations” could level the playing field between players, allowing for differences in, for example, players using a touchscreen or a controller to input controls, and those using a keyboard and mouse.