About Curation

Published on February 17, 2024

Let's Talk About Curation

The Meaning of Curation

Curation highlights fun maps from across the style spectrum that our diverse team hopes the community will enjoy as much as we do! Our Curation team strives to recommend maps that meet our minimum quality standards AND subjectively have that extra “fun factor” for that individual Curator.

Not every playable map is curation-worthy and not every curatable map will be curated. Think of us as reviewers recommending our favorite maps.



The Curation Team

Our Senior Curators (curator management) strive to maintain a diverse group of Curators with all kinds of tastes and preferences. If you notice a Curator has tastes and preferences that align with yours, you can follow their curations on BeatSaver! Click here for a complete Team Roster with their BeatSaver bios and links to each Curator's BeatSaver profile!

How to Follow a Curator

To follow a Curator you like, go to their BeatSaver profile page and click on the drop-down arrow next to the "Follow" button. From here, you can choose to Follow that Curator's Uploads or Curations (some of our Curators are also community mappers and even Official mappers). Once checked, you'll get notified each time they upload or curate a map (depending on your selection).


For Mappers 🔗

While Curation decisions are in large part subjective, the following major playability issues (often referred to as Objective Issues) will bar a map from curation.

  • Audibly Off-time notes. Beat Saber is a rhythm game, so if the rhythm is off, it shows. This determination is subjective, as it must be noticeable during play, not just through editor checking. If a dispute arises about a timing issue in a curated map, a thread will be started within the curator team channel so that other Curators can play the map and form a consensus as to whether the timing issues are audible in game, and thus are objective errors.
  • Dangerous patterns. Any patterns that can potentially injure or damage the equipment of the average player shouldn’t be highlighted. Dangerous patterns are listed in the BSMG Mapping Wiki “Forbidden Patterns” list. You can also view the Glossary for definitions and images
    • Hard handclaps (blocks pointing at each other)
    • Hammer hits (blocks pointing directly at bombs)
    • Hidden blocks (stacked notes, bombs in notes, notes/bombs in walls, etc.)
    • Excessive hitbox abuse (if the pre-path swing of a block is directly covered by a block of the opposite color with no space in between)
    • Disembodied notes (blocks on both sides of a wall during a wall segment)
    • Danger dash walls (walls that take up the center two lanes, or 3-wide-walls)
    • Rapid dodge walls (full-height walls that the player must move to avoid within an unsafe amount of time)
    • Face punchers (cross-body top-row patterns on the same beat)
    • Challenge patterns (loloppes, vibro, etc.) are not curatable when in a standard difficulty but are OK to have in a lawless one.
  • Vision Blocks (VBs) with insufficient time to react can be major playability issues. This determination is subjective, as it is dependent on factors including NJS and offset, the speed of the map, and the intended audience. The VBs must be noticeable during play, not just through editor checking. If a dispute arises about VBs in a curated map, a thread will be started so that other Curators can play the map and form a consensus as to whether they constitute major playability issues, and thus are objective errors.
  • Hot starts (less than 1.33 seconds of time before any interactable objects)
  • No lighting (maps must have basic lighting - at least from an autolighter)
  • NSFW content. If a map has an NSFW cover, title, or description, it shouldn't be curated until the mapper changes the cover or updates the title/description. (Changing a cover requires a reupload)
  • "Cyborg" content. Cyborg maps that were initially generated by an auto-mapping program like Beat Sage or Lolighter (robot) and then tweaked (human) (robot + human = cyborg... we're nerds). These maps will not show up on BeatSaver without altering the search criteria and will never show up on BeastSaber. If you think a map is made by Beat Sage you can run it through the public Beat Sage Validator to check it.
  • Senior Curator-uncurated content. If Curator Management has uncurated a map with cause, it may not be recurated without approval.

Maps with objective issues in the Curation Request Queue will be marked with an ❌ reaction and will not be looked at by Curators.

Have a map you’d like to suggest to our Curation team?

While most of our Curators regularly keep up with the Latest Maps feed on BeatSaver, if after a few days your map (or someone else's map) hasn't gotten curated and you feel like it hasn't gotten the attention you think it deserves, you can submit the map as a curation request.

Fill out our Curation Request Form and then track the status of your request here. Please review the Guide/FAQ there if you have questions.