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Having experienced well over 200 recent games this year, I am officially wrapping things up on 2025. My best-of compilation is out in the world, and I am at peace with the concluding selections, despite being aware plenty of stellar titles probably slipped under the radar. Now, there's plan is to other than unwind, unplug a little, and perhaps take a refreshing hike in the— oh no, discovered one more great game. There go my plans!

An Early Favorite Surfaces

During my off-hours play, usually reserved for a handful of quirky titles, I've encountered what could be my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that deconstructs a classic dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of major consequence danger and payoff. View this a preview for the in-the-know: If you take pride discovering a game before it hits the mainstream, sample Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your gaming budget.

A Tactical Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's different from everything I've ever played. The concept is that you must venture into a dungeon, descending floor after floor on a quest for the sun, which has vanished from its world. In practice, this results in some recognizable genre framework. Select a character who has parameters and powers, defeat enemies on every stage of monsters, pick up some passive buffs (represented as teeth), and vanquish a few area guardians. Easy to grasp!

The Unique Central System

The way you truly navigate a chamber, is unique. Each instance you begin a fresh level, the game presents a sixteen-square board of boxes. Every tile either contains a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To proceed, you choose on one of the four rows, but the specific tile you land in is up to chance.

You might see a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a one-in-four probability of hitting a specific tile in a row.

Then, you'll probabilities change. So do you take the risk, or do you click on a safer line first and try to make safer moves early? That's the push-your-luck gameplay at play in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing after you develop an understanding of it.

Manipulating Probability

The roguelike twist is that your probabilities can be influenced through a run by collecting teeth that change what things you're more attracted to. For example, you might get a perk that will reduce the probability of hitting a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of finding a reward too.

• Creating a build is about influencing the statistics optimally to have a improved likelihood at landing where you want.
• During one attempt, I focused my attribute improvements toward melee prowess and picked as many teeth I could that would improve my probability of attracting me toward monsters with that damage type.
• During a separate session, I constructed my hero around loot caches and combined that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters whenever I opened a chest.

The customization choices are somewhat constrained, but they are sufficient to work with to allow you to tweak the odds to your preference.

A Constant Tension

Naturally, it remains a game of chance. There remains the risk that you have a high probability to hit the preferred space but end up landing a monster that would deplete your last bit of health. Every move is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you navigate a level and decide when to continue selecting or when to move on to the following level rather than risking it all.

Tools such as destructive ordnance assist in minimizing the chance, similar to some hero powers. A particular character's special power, charged after selecting four tiles, lets gamers to choose a vertical line in place of a horizontal line for that move. If you play this move wisely, you can hold that ability for an optimal time to sidestep a dangerous choice. You'll find an astonishing level of strategy in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is still in development, and it has a final update scheduled until the final game is released. An additional hero and a fresh guardian are scheduled to arrive by the end of January. The official version probably isn't long after, but the game's developers haven't set a final date yet.

A Parting Thought

No matter when the complete game arrives, you ought to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. For the past week, I've been thoroughly captivated with it, discovering its hidden nuances and banking my earned gold every session to unlock a steady stream of meta progression rewards, featuring fresh adventurers and items purchasable while playing. I still haven't completed the dungeon, and I suspect I will remain working on that task when 1.0 finally hits. Sign me up for the long haul.