How to unlock and build the museum
Once you've built your tent and settled into the island that will be your home for the next few hundred hours, you might start to notice the lack of other buildings. Shops and other services are simply absent, with the museum being a particularly notable omission. Luckily, it's also one of the first you'll unlock, and to do that you just need to keep working for Tom Nook.
After the opening intro, you are freed on your island paradise, but you must stay focused on resident services and his head: Tom Nook. Keep chatting with him and he'll give you tasks, including catching fish and bringing it back to him. Follow all of these instructions and bring him five unique specimens to unlock the museum.
After that, it's as easy as choosing the location for the Blathers new tent. I generally like to put it near my house, but not overwhelmingly. I deposit a lot of objects at the museum, because I am a bit of a collector and I like to please the Blathers with my donations. Making it easily accessible is therefore very practical.
Now if you want the full building experience you just have to repeat this process, only with Blathers instead of Tom Nook. Keep fishing, catching bugs, and digging up fossils and be sure to donate them to Blathers. You'll need 15 in total, and they all have to be unique species or specimens of course, so you'll be doing a lot of that. Once he has had enough, he will be ready to build the museum itself. Speak with Tom Nook to set up the opening ceremony and everything will be built for you.
And that's how to unlock and build the museum in Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
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