PlayStation Wrap-Up 2021: How To Access Your Annual Recap Feature for PS4 and PS5

The PlayStation Wrap-Up feature has finally launched, even if it is a few weeks later than you might expect. Towards the end of 2021, it felt like we were getting inundated with these year-in-review features.

First there was Spotify Wrapped, which explored your listening habits and drew conclusions about your music taste, before letting you share the findings online.

Shortly thereafter, Reddit launched its own annual recap (which was surprisingly heavy on bee-keeping), Google unveiled its top trends of the year, Snapchat rolled out a comically inaccurate memento for 2021, and there was the unofficial Instagram Top 9 app.

With it now being a few weeks into 2022, you might have assumed that the annual recap season was now well and truly over. Indeed, the Instagram feature (which debuted around New Year's Eve) seemed to put an end to it.

However, we have one last latecomer to the party, in the form of Sony. The console manufacturer has just released its PlayStation Wrap-Up report.

As you would expect, this summarizes your gaming activity from 2021. It has insights on things like how much time you spent with either the PS4 or the PS5, which titles you played the most, and how many trophies you earned in total.

These insights are then compiled into social media friendly infographics, which you can share on sites such as Facebook or Twitter. For an example of what this looks like, see below:

In addition to this, the PlayStation Wrap-up also gives you a community breakdown of what gamers have been up to around the globe. For instance, you can see combined stats of what audiences have accomplished in PlayStation exclusives, such as Returnal and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.

How To Get Your Own PlayStation Recap

Accessing our PlayStation Wrap-Up is theoretically straightforward, but it's not featured anywhere on the PlayStation dashboard itself. As such, you won't be able to get to it through a console and will instead need to use a web browser.

All you need to do is visit the dedicated webpage and then sign in to your PlayStation Network (PSN) account.

For this, you must enter the email address that is associated with your profile, as well as your password. If you don't remember these credentials, click on the "Trouble Signing In?" link.

Once you have logged in to your PSN account, you might need to wait a few seconds for the page to load. Once it does, you will immediately be presented with your individual recap feature.

What About the Mouse and Cheese Game?

As we mentioned above, it is theoretically straightforward to get the PlayStation Wrap-Up.

Yet, while there's a good chance that you managed to log in without encountering any problems, some users have struggled. This is because of a particularly demanding Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart (CAPTCHA) that you might have to respond to.

Rather than just spotting traffic cones, entering a verification code, or manually typing out a given word, this test presents you with a selection of mazes.

Your job is to then work out which one of these is unsolvable, by seeing if the cartoon mouse can reach a block of cheese elsewhere in the labyrinth. When you identify the unlucky rodent in question, you must then click on that maze and submit your response.

While that might sound easy enough, you will be asked to do this again and again, with some users reporting that they gave up after 40 attempts.

Redditor u/Dr_Bam even joked that the mouse and cheese game should now be one of their most played titles of the year after trying to beat this overzealous CAPTCHA test.

Meanwhile, in the comments on the official PlayStation Blog post, Dharmamitra points out that the number of puzzles you have to solve "doesn't sound reasonable" and deezyreturns writes that it is the "worst customer experience I've ever had on [PlayStation]".

On a more serious note, others have complained that this test is not accessible for those with visual impairments (especially as the mazes get increasingly difficult and smaller as the test goes on), or for those that just struggle with puzzles.

In terms of what you can do about the mouse and cheese puzzle, it is possible to satisfy this CAPTCHA, but if you make even one mistake then you will fail. Alternatively, you can try backing out of the whole process and trying again, as there is a chance that you might be given an easier test to pass.

For example, there is one that simply asks you to click on a designated image and then enter a verification code.

Newsweek has contacted Sony for comment on this CAPTCHA test and why it is so demanding. At the time of publication, there has been no response.