The Metropolitan Museum of Art Launches New Blockchain Game

The Metropolitan Museum of Art has launched a new short-session game, Art Links, that invites players to identify common threads and intriguing connections between works of art from The Met collection. This is the first Web3-based experience (a game that is built using blockchain technology) at The Met. Designed in partnership with the art and tech platform TRLab, this mobile-first, browser-based, blockchain-powered game presents an innovative way to engage with the Museum, and offers the opportunity to collect special in-game NFT badges and win exciting in-person and digital rewards. Art Links launches today, January 23, and is available on The Met’s website at artlinks.metmuseum.org.

The serialized game, which releases new challenges weekly, features over 140 works of art from across The Met collection. Upon successfully finding art-based connections—or “chains”—between works, players can claim free NFT “badges” and earn “achievements” by tackling in-game challenges. After the January 23 launch, new challenges will be released on Thursdays at 12:01 a.m. EST for 12 weeks. Players who earn achievements are entered to win exciting perks and rewards, such as Museum exhibition catalogues, discounts at The Met Store, and private, curator-led tours.

"This groundbreaking online game is an exciting first for The Met and a singular experience in the museum field at large,” said Max Hollein, The Met’s Marina Kellen French Director and Chief Executive Officer. “By bringing works of art from collections across the Museum—from Modern and Contemporary Art to Asian to Egyptian Art—players can broaden their engagement and understanding of culture and creativity in a fun and compelling way. Art Links truly exemplifies how The Met continues to connect audiences to ideas and to one another while exploring emerging technology.”

The works of art featured in the game were selected by Destinee Filmore, Assistant Curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, and a cross-disciplinary team from across The Met’s vast collection. Each chain includes at least one work from The Met’s collection of 20th- and 21st-century art, placing these works in a broader creative context.

The game features four types of connections: “Highlights,” showcasing key works, artists, or movements; “Material,” focusing on how works are made; “Emojis,” highlighting signs, symbols, and visual culture; and “Web3,” showing how artists across time have engaged with core concepts underpinning the blockchain, such as randomization, security, and ledgers.

Themes that players will discover during the 12 weeks include: “Objects in Disguise,” artworks made from surprising and sometimes deliberately deceptive materials, such as Paper Med No.18 by Su Xianzhong; “Art x Tech,” with works that touch on artists’ dialogue with technological innovation across time, including Matthew Jensen’s The 49 States; and “Harlem as Muse,” featuring artists who looked to Harlem as a subject and source of inspiration, including Romare Bearden, Faith Ringgold, and Jacob Lawrence.

Audrey Ou, Co-Founder and CEO of TRLab, said, “As a company at the forefront of art and technology, we’re committed to creating new ways for audiences to discover, engage, and immerse themselves in art and culture. Partnering with The Met on its first Web3 experience reflects our belief that deepening connections between creators, collectors, and fans is the future of art. We’re combining digital innovation with artistic expression to create truly transformative experiences.”

In each game, players create a chain that consists of seven artworks and six connections. The connections can be words, emojis, or artworks. The chain is completed in three rounds, with each round becoming progressively more difficult. Players have four attempts to complete each chain correctly. No prior knowledge of art history is required to play, and the game includes built-in learning moments—accessible through an icon on each digital representation of art—to discover more about the work and the artist.

Players can collect 12 free badges, one for each weekly chain, with opportunities to earn seven achievements linked to in-game challenges. Five of the achievement tokens are free, while two tokens can be purchased at an affordable price. (No purchase is necessary to enter or win.) Built on Base (Coinbase’s L2), the game accepts cryptocurrency and credit card payments through MoonPay and Stripe.

The game was built with universal accessibility in mind and features screen-reader friendly code along with visual descriptions of all in-game artwork and imagery. These features were developed in partnership with The Met’s Access team and individual testers from The Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School.

Art Links will be featured on The Met’s website as well as on social media.

About The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Met presents art from around the world and across time for everyone to experience and enjoy. The Museum lives in two iconic sites in New York City—The Met Fifth Avenue and The Met Cloisters. Millions of people also take part in The Met experience online. Since it was founded in 1870, The Met has always aspired to be more than a treasury of rare and beautiful objects. Every day, art comes alive in the Museum’s galleries and through its exhibitions and events, revealing both new ideas and unexpected connections across time and across cultures.

About TRLab
TRLab unites artists and technologists to develop fine art collectibles that foster deeper connections between digital artists, collectors, and fans. Driven by a mission to make art more collectible through innovative, hybrid experiences combining digital and physical art, TRLab has successfully designed and launched innovative art experiences with artists, estates, and institutions. TRLab’s notable collaborations include “The Calder Question,” a multiseason educational project developed with the Calder Foundation; “Your Daytime Fireworks,” an interactive collecting journey with contemporary artist Cai Guo-Qiang, which was shortlisted for a 2022 Lumen Prize; and “Vogue Meta-Ocean,” the first digital art collection curated by Vogue editors worldwide. A women-led company, TRLab was co-founded in 2021 by CEO Audrey Ou, a Rockbund Art Museum Board Member and Chairwoman Xin Li-Cohen, a non-executive Deputy Chairman at Christie’s.

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