Animal Crossing: New Horizons Can Use Getty Museum Art In-Game

The Animal Crossing franchise has always been praised for its relaxing gameplay that encouraged creativity and social interaction more than the usual metrics of high scores and loot. The Switch's incarnation of the game took it to the next level, offering customization options that may have never been available in the franchise ever. And it isn't just players who are getting creative because even the Getty Museum is now jumping on Animal Crossing fever to spread glorious art to gamers' eyes.

Animal Crossing: New Horizons allowed players to create designs for putting up on walls or even for making shirts. Very creative players make their own while some are willing to settle for importing images. The Getty Museum is now offering a middle ground that can let players enjoy centuries' worth of art instead.

The Animal Crossing Art Generator is actually very simple to use. At its most basic, players can search for an art piece on the Getty Museum, crop the art pieces to your liking, and then generate a QR Code that you can then scan with your phone using the Nintendo Switch app. In the game, players use the NookLink to connect the Switch and the phone to download the custom design and use it to display on canvases or on walls, shirts, and even floors.

You aren't even limited to just the Getty Museum's collection. You can use art from other museums as long as they use the International Image Interoperability Framework or IIIF. Getty, fortunately, has a handy guide on how to make sense of it all.

Given the small size and low pixel count of Animal Crossing images, don't expect these masterpieces to be reproduced faithfully. They could, at most give players and visitors some sense of the beauty in the artworks and, hopefully, gain some newfound appreciation for art in general.