Locus 2025 was a multi-layered contest launched in early 2025 to bring the creative circles on osu! closer together.
Submissions to this contest included the following elements:
Event | Date (UTC) |
---|---|
Teaser #1 submission | 1 April 2025 |
Trial voting start | 16 March 2025 |
Teaser #2 submission | 1 May 2025 |
Trial voting end | 16 May 2025 |
Entry submission deadline | 30 June 2025 (12:00) |
Community voting period | 1 August to 16 August 2025 (12:00) |
Results stream | 17 August 2025 (14:00) |
Results news publication | 21 August 2025 |
The top 5 entries of the contest earned equal prizes. This number was decided based on the number of entries (42).
For any entry that was submitted by the entry submission deadline, team members are awarded a profile badge if they are able to rank the set before the end of the next iteration of the contest.
Additionally, the player with the highest score on this osu!(lazer) playlist of all the entries received a "Locus playlist winner" badge.
Finally, there was a wildcard prize. peppy, the game's creator, picked his favourite entry and that team earned a separate mystery prize, revealed to be the following:
Locus 2025 is run by various members of the osu! team alongside some prominent members of the community.
Position | Member(s) |
---|---|
Manager | mangomizer, Matrix |
Developers | Komm, Venix |
Graphic designers | Adarin, Tanza |
General assistance | Doomsday, Ephemeral, Hivie, pishifat, Walavouchey |
This contest has come to an end and resulted in the following podium:
peppy also picked an entry to receive the additional mystery prize:
Wispy won the Locus 2025 osu!(lazer) playlist and received a badge:
Locus playlist leader
# | Team | Entry | Elo | Graphics | Music | Mapping | Votes1 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Hexagram | Koto Spirit - Locus of Hexagram | 5205.7 | 1751.1 | 1730.4 | 1724.3 | 134 |
2 | Sylenth2 v7.2769420 "Unlimited Synth Works" | takehirotei - Haiboku no Altra Vita | 5078 | 1815.1 | 1685.3 | 1577.6 | 109 |
3 | 5Head | Will Stetson - Of Our Time | 4977.2 | 1706.8 | 1654.1 | 1616.3 | 113 |
4 | Vespera | Akiri - Vespera Stella | 4969.5 | 1793 | 1572.3 | 1604.2 | 105 |
5 | Vocaloid Lovers | ArXe - Locus Amoenus (feat. Megurine Luka) | 4962 | 1807.2 | 1594.9 | 1559.9 | 117 |
6 | Meteors | kanase. - Lost Night Meteor | 4905.3 | 1696.9 | 1583.1 | 1625.3 | 111 |
7 | Meguro | nm-y - Datura Sh//va | 4885.1 | 1739.9 | 1546.3 | 1599 | 110 |
8 | CN2K | kanemiko - distance of -RADIAL- | 4882 | 1745.8 | 1565.4 | 1570.7 | 108 |
9 | AXIOMA | Kry.exe - Rift Walker | 4867.5 | 1728.5 | 1620.7 | 1518.4 | 113 |
10 | fruit salad | Juwubi - H1GH D!VE | 4845.5 | 1660.7 | 1576.4 | 1608.4 | 110 |
11 | :owoyay: | nominomu - against cacophony (feat. Mai) | 4793.8 | 1608.2 | 1584.9 | 1600.7 | 126 |
12 | Team Red but Blue | Redside - First Adventure | 4790.9 | 1590.2 | 1615.1 | 1585.7 | 116 |
13 | s-sigma... | Xyris - Vitality Charger (feat. Hanakuma Chifuyu) | 4776.4 | 1580.1 | 1600.4 | 1595.9 | 111 |
14 | Gumiho | Fox Rush - Paint The Ocean Blue (feat. Cassylish) | 4762.3 | 1623.6 | 1561.3 | 1577.4 | 114 |
15 | metamorphosis | MetaHumanBoi - kinetic flux | 4742.7 | 1613.8 | 1577.3 | 1551.5 | 106 |
16 | we need a poll | Krimek - Dahlia (feat. eili) | 4689.4 | 1537.3 | 1601.1 | 1551 | 102 |
17 | Picardia | Cityyy - Asphyxia | 4678.8 | 1622 | 1480.2 | 1576.6 | 101 |
18 | "we couldn't agree on naming" | Xeven - Become One Again (feat. Hatsune Miku) | 4625.9 | 1590.9 | 1498.1 | 1536.9 | 115 |
19 | church of ppy | furtrash - LONG LIVE THE KING | 4616 | 1511.5 | 1511.2 | 1593.3 | 119 |
20 | Fetchquest | WangleLine - Super Kitten Travel Hex | 4601.6 | 1456.1 | 1617.3 | 1528.1 | 114 |
21 | Miku Fan Club | Darkney - Prism Fall | 4598.2 | 1586.8 | 1474.8 | 1536.6 | 105 |
22 | Crychic ghost | Star* aka liaoxingyao - Inochi | 4584.4 | 1439.5 | 1541.6 | 1603.3 | 107 |
23 | Team Divergence | aidolon - Replay | 4476.1 | 1541.2 | 1442.7 | 1492.2 | 117 |
24 | Taiko World Cup | Viatores Nebulae feat. Megurine Luka - Heart of Epitaph | 4437.4 | 1474.4 | 1498.1 | 1464.9 | 113 |
25 | osu2vn | trung-nova - Starry Comet | 4412.6 | 1382.6 | 1523.8 | 1506.2 | 124 |
26 | Ocskai | RRolanDD - Almom | 4373.5 | 1516.1 | 1418.6 | 1438.8 | 100 |
27 | Augment:Nova | Riprider - ENC0DED : ENTR0PY | 4305.8 | 1319.3 | 1473.7 | 1512.8 | 106 |
28 | Lazy Seals | Chamiracqua - The Epiphany (feat. smoothycloud) | 4297.8 | 1508.9 | 1354.1 | 1434.9 | 115 |
29 | 1head | rikvinyas - Ryuu no Majo | 4293.6 | 1328.4 | 1440.7 | 1524.5 | 124 |
30 | we do well with deadlines | Aphel - Pondering Magic | 4243.5 | 1364.8 | 1413 | 1465.6 | 110 |
31 | hdm enjoyers | agu - unbound | 4236.7 | 1421.2 | 1364.7 | 1450.8 | 106 |
32 | aniteam | Ttmouse - NatsuUtsu feat. Kasane Teto | 4198.6 | 1323.5 | 1429.2 | 1445.9 | 113 |
33 | Demiurge Zero | Attoclef ft. Γêà - EynohR | 4182.3 | 1339.4 | 1386.8 | 1456.1 | 84 |
34 | Drumstep4 - LYRICS! | sugosugiii - Maelstrom | 4167.7 | 1314.2 | 1379.9 | 1473.6 | 103 |
35 | Team RGB | Artackni - Brainfryer | 4160 | 1293.6 | 1449.7 | 1416.7 | 111 |
36 | moonleaf++++ EXTEND | Tufani - Along the Cycle | 4136.6 | 1378.1 | 1403.1 | 1355.5 | 92 |
37 | The Abyss | Tsukishiro feat. Inti - Neon Rebellion | 4052.7 | 1370.3 | 1271.8 | 1410.7 | 120 |
38 | The Microwaves | eluixx - untitled_1 | 4050.3 | 1282 | 1384.2 | 1384.1 | 118 |
39 | Angevin Eulogy | Evangelion_guy - it doesn't feel like home to me | 3834.1 | 1185.3 | 1287.9 | 1360.9 | 106 |
40 | 5pc chicken mcnuggets | Maemi no Yume - Free Your Heart | 3828.5 | 785.1 | 1503.7 | 1539.7 | 105 |
41 | Limerence | airlemoneX - Be with you | 3752.4 | 1443.7 | 1449.7 | 859 | 117 |
42 | Shiny morning | ZxKirara feat. Shian - Shiny Day Roam | 3722.2 | 1223.3 | 1332.6 | 1166.4 | 120 |
Failure to abide by these rules MAY lead to immediate disqualification.
.osz
by the submission deadline. Do not upload your entry to the website via BSS — there will be a separate submission for this.
.mp3
(192 kbps) or .ogg
(208 kbps) format..osz
should aim to contain an ENHIX spread that satisfies the current ranking criteria for the osu! game mode. Your submission should contain no more than 5 difficulties..osz
on submission.Teams must be registered in order to submit an entry. Teams are allowed to choose their own team name on registration, but the osu! team reserves the right to request a change if deemed unsuitable for the event. Team members are to remain anonymous for the duration of the contest — they will be revealed at its conclusion.
Visit the contest page and drop your submission as a .osz
file. The deadline is 30 June 2025 (12:00 UTC).
Before submitting, please check the following:
During the week after the submission deadline, entries will be checked to ensure all rules are followed. Any required changes will be communicated via email.
We cannot expect every composer and graphic designer who is interested in participating to be familiar with navigating the osu! community, so the Nexus was created as a support system to help those who are looking to form or join viable teams.
The Nexus is not a compulsory process. It is designed as both a support system as well as an additional avenue to help individuals form teams. Participants are welcome to form teams through their own methods as well, but they must still register their team if they intend to participate.
The Nexus is available on the Mappers' Guild website.
A form of community voting was chosen to determine the ranking of the submissions, as it best reflects the osu! community spirit. To combat bandwagoning, a unique elo voting system was developed:
Teaser #1 and #2 are optional submissions. Registered teams are allowed to freely submit a 5–10 second video clip showcasing their work. These clips will be stitched together to form a "trailer" that will be featured on osu!'s social media.
The osu! team reserves the right to deny any clip if deemed unsuitable for the event.
A Discord channel (#osu-locus
) will be created on the osu! server. Announcements will be posted there — it will be up to teams to ensure they are caught up with the latest updates, though we will endeavour to inform registered teams of any updates.
For specific (private) enquiries or disputes, email mangomizer@ppy.sh.
From 16 March to 7 May, a trial voting was conducted to allow people to familiarise themselves with the voting system.
Users were asked "What was the best osu! original tiebreaker from the osu! World Cups?". 378 voters got 5 randomly selected beatmaps to rank across two categories, music and mapping, with the votes being fed into an Elo algorithm. Unlike the actual voting, the resulting leaderboard was visible live on the trial voting website crafted for the event. At the end, the results were calculated as an average of 1,000 random voting runs to account for bias in voting order.
The results were as follows:
Each voter is assigned 5 randomly selected entries to rank in each category. The vote count is the amount of voters assigned to a particular entry who also submitted their vote. ↑
Win rate is the ratio of total wins over losses against other entries during the Elo calculation. ↑ ↑ ↑
This map was disqualified from the graphics category due to the beatmap's background being too heavily inspired by an existing artwork. ↑