Unlocking and Upgrading the Museum in Animal Crossing: New Horizons

In Animal Crossing: New Horizons, just like in earlier titles, gathering every fossil, bug, and fish is a key part of the experience, making it essential to have a place to showcase your collection. To do this, you’ll need to unlock the museum, where you can donate your finds instead of selling, gifting, or keeping them. The museum is overseen by Blathers, who will accept your donations directly. Unlocking the museum is part of your journey to obtaining your first shovel.

**How To Unlock The Museum**
Here’s a step-by-step guide to building and upgrading the museum on your island. You can start the museum unlock process right from day one. After completing the tutorial on your first day, Tom Nook will ask for five different fish or bugs. He’s hoping that the island’s native wildlife will convince Blathers to move in. Once you hand over the fifth specimen, Blathers will call Tom Nook and agree to come to the island the next day. Tom will then provide you with a camping tent to set up for Blathers, marking the future site of the museum. Choose a location you like, as you won’t be able to move buildings for a while.

On the second day, when Blathers arrives, he’ll accept donations of bugs, fish, and fossils (though he’ll need to assess fossils first). He’ll also give you DIY recipes for the shovel and vaulting pole, which are essential for digging up fossils and exploring more of your island. To get Blathers out of the tent and into a proper building, you’ll need to donate an additional 15 bugs and/or fish. Don’t worry about the specimens you’ve already donated; all 20 will be displayed in the museum once it opens and will count towards your collection. If you manage to donate all required specimens by the third day, the museum will be under construction. It’s a good idea to hold onto any additional bugs, fish, and fossils you find on this day for when the museum opens the next day. Once the museum is complete (on the fourth day, if you’re speeding through this process), Blathers will accept multiple donations at once.

**How To Upgrade The Museum**
After downloading the April 23 update, you can upgrade the museum to include an art wing. According to a dataminer, you’ll need to have donated 60 items (fish, bugs, and/or fossils) to unlock this new feature. If you’re consistently catching seasonal bugs and fish and collecting four fossils each day, you should reach 60 donations in a few weeks. Once you hit that milestone, Blathers will inform you that he’s considering accepting art donations and will ask to see your first piece of art. This will trigger automatically when you speak to him after meeting the donation requirement; there’s no need to keep track yourself.

The next day, Jolly Redd will arrive on your island to sell you a genuine piece of art—check out a guide for more details on Redd’s offerings. After you donate your first piece of art to Blathers, the museum will undergo an upgrade. It will close for construction the following day, and the day after that, it will reopen with the exciting new art wing!