Every year, Sony sends out an email to PlayStation users with a link to their gaming statistics. The PlayStation Wrap-Up is a fun and sometimes eye-opening way for players to look back on their activities on PlayStation consoles in the preceding year. This year’s PlayStation Wrap-Up provides a brief summary of player stats like their most-played games, number of trophies earned, and total number of hours, days, and games played in 2021.
The PlayStation Wrap-Up also shares statistics about the PlayStation community from around the world. For example, in 2021, the most popular weapon in Housemarque’s Returnal was the Hollowseeker, the Malformed Kerberonyx caused the most player deaths, and there were over 12 million hours played in the game worldwide. Numbers for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and Destruction AllStars were provided too, as well as information on the number of games given away via PlayStation Plus last year.
In order to access the information from the PlayStation Wrap-Up, some people had to complete a captcha. This year it involves an image with six mice, each lost within their own maze, and people must select the mouse that won't reach the cheese at the end of the maze. A simple enough task, but only if the captcha works correctly. While initially told the puzzle needed to be solved five times, upon successfully completing the final attempt, the required number would sometimes abruptly jump to 20 or more. Once the captcha finally worked, some people received an error message when the browser loaded the PlayStation Wrap-Up page and were forced to start over. Or, despite being sent an email by PlayStation, some people would be sent to a page stating that the annual wrap-up was not available in their country.
The PlayStation Wrap-Up hashtag on Twitter quickly became filled with people sharing their difficulties in getting past the mouse captcha. Most who encountered the captcha error seemed to take it in good humor, with some sharing images of altered PlayStation Wrap-Up statistics. “Pick the Mouse that Can’t Reach the Cheese” became some players’ most-played game of the year, with hundreds of hours logged.
In reality, some of the PlayStation Wrap-Up numbers shared by community members are truly impressive. Some players racked up 3,000 hours playing a single game in 2021; others earned over 100 PlayStation trophies. Despite the issues with the mouse captcha, the PlayStation Wrap-Up is always an exciting time for people to see a summary of their accomplishments on the PS4 and PS5, and those who manage to view their stats also receive a code for four exclusive PlayStation avatars.