Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from everyone on the osu! team! Whether you're ready for 2017 or not, too bad - it's finally here. Read on to get a little taste of what we've got planned, and a little surprise to boot!

We hope that you've all enjoyed your holidays over the past month or so, and have come away from your time with family and friends suitably refreshed to experience the year head on - because there's a LOT of stuff slated to happen in 2017.

From the massive leaps and bounds in the development of the new game client, to the forthcoming World Cups (MWC7K only weeks away), brand new Monthly Beatmapping Contests every month (for real this time, we promise), the introduction of the long-awaited moddingv2 (aka: beatmap discussions) system, officially supported user-made Teams (!!), a massive overhaul of the existing Ranking Charts into the new Spotlights system, dozens of new Hush-Hush style medals, and more Featured Artists from a variety of genres - there's literally never been a better time to be hyped about osu!'s future.

2017 is going to be big. That's not even counting all the dozens of community-run tournaments and events as well!

To celebrate, we've drawn upon the incredible talent of @Phibonnachee to render the osu! mascots in all their new-year celebratory glory for the main menu:

Speaking of incredible talent, there's rumors floating around about a certain rave-loving artist joining the ranks of the osu!musicians recently, as well as a certain happy-go-lucky artist whom was previously featured on a particularly monstrous music label. Whoever could they be?

In any case, it's a big year to come, and whilst a lot of the osu! team is currently out and about visiting their own families and friends, we've all come together to wish you the best in the new year.

Thank you all for making osu! as awesome as it is, and we're super excited to usher in the new year. We hope you will be, too!

—Ephemeral