New Featured Artist: xi

Yep, it's xi.

Usually we'd write some stuff here to hype up how cool this artist is, but like... do we even need to?

Let's be honest. If you've ever clicked a circle, you know who xi is. FREEDOM DiVE has been the go-to beatmap for high BPM streams for nearly a decade and Blue Zenith has cursed generations of osu! players through the existence of a simple 3 digit number.

It's absurd how much of osu!'s history is built around xi's piano-based musical prowess, and we're incredibly happy to finally have them on board as one of our Featured Artists!

With an artist as monumental as this, we grabbed as much music as we feasibly could. xi's Featured Artist listing houses 42 tracks in total, including classics and newer pieces alike.

That's enough words. Watch chocomint (a.k.a. Cookiezi) set a legendary play that has lived rent-free in everyone's heads for the last 7 years:

Blue Zenith

Point your fingers at any of these maps:

• Classic osu! mapset hosted by Asphyxia
• 4K osu!mania mapset hosted by riunosk
• Loved 4K osu!mania mapset hosted by Jepetski
• Loved 7K osu!mania mapset hosted by Jinjin
• Loved osu!catch mapset hosted by oo oo

FREEDOM DiVE

If Blue Zenith is too slow for you, try one of these:

• Classic approved osu! mapset hosted by Nakagawa-Kanon
• 4K and 7K osu!mania mapset hosted by snoverpk
• Loved osu! mapset hosted by haha5957
• Modern osu! mapset hosted by FrenZ396
• Another Loved osu! mapset hosted by elchxyrlia

Ascension to Heaven

Yeah, even more maps:

• Classic approved osu! mapset hosted by Shiirn
• Modern osu! mapset hosted by -Tynamo
• Marathon osu! mapset and non-marathon osu! mapset, both hosted by Kroytz
• 7K osu!mania mapset hosted by Jinjin
• Loved osu! mapset hosted by Zapy
• osu!taiko mapset hosted by Remus
• And one more osu!taiko mapset hosted by Serial Dreemur

Akasha

And who would've guessed that there's even more maps:

• Super popular osu! mapset hosted by Atsuro
• Legendary keysounded Loved osu! mapset hosted by Jemmmmy
• 8K osu!mania mapset hosted by Luyuja
• Unorthodox Loved osu! map hosted by Midge
• Another Loved osu! mapset hosted by Nyan
• Loved osu!catch mapset hosted by Yumeno Himiko

Aragami

Try out one of these maps from every game mode:

• osu! and osu!taiko hybrid mapset by Cherry Blossom and Kurokotei
• osu!catch mapset hosted by F D Flourite
• 4K and 7K osu!mania mapset hosted by Blocko

over the top

We're running short on ways to ask you to play maps, so just play these already:

• 4K osu!mania mapset hosted by Rizqy
• Loved osu! mapset hosted by Weriko
• Loved 7K osu!mania mapset hosted by ArcherLove

Halcyon

We're definitely not running short on maps to showcase though:

• Classic osu! mapset hosted by gowww
• Modern osu! mapset hosted by Heatherfield
• Long version osu! mapset hosted by Natsu
• Long version 7K osu!mania mapset hosted by Kawawa
• And one more long version osu! mapset hosted by [ -Scarlet- ]

Happy End of the World

Play through any of these climactic maps:

• Classic osu! mapset hosted by Liiraye
• Another osu! mapset hosted by Kroytz
• osu!mania mega mapset including difficulties everywhere from 4K to 9K

Believe it or not, this is only the tip of the iceberg. There's even more maps of xi's music available to play that we can't reasonably fit in this overflowing list!

Statistically speaking, it should be preeeeeeetty obvious that xi's music is PERFECT for beatmapping. Once you're done playing all these maps, feel free to create your own artcore masterpiece through any of the beatmap templates on xi's Featured Artist listing!

And with that, the Featured Artist program will be taking a quick break until 2022.

We'll bring things back with some current Featured Artist updates at the start of next year, then we'll run full-swing back into our usual schedule.

Thanks for sticking with us for all this time. We can assure you that we'll bring even more awesome artists to osu! next year.

Stay tuned. :)

—pishifat