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After playing more than 200 fresh titles this year, I am officially turning the page on 2025. My year-end list is published, and I'm satisfied with the concluding selections, even knowing plenty of excellent games may have dropped by the wayside. Currently, my only plan is to except relax, unplug a little, and possibly go for a pleasant stroll in the— ah crap, stumbled upon a amazing experience. So much for my plans!

A Surprising Contender Emerges

With my laid-back sessions, typically earmarked for a handful of quirky titles, I've discovered what might become my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that breaks down a classic labyrinth explorer into a chance-driven game of major consequence danger and payoff. Take this as a hipster's insider tip: If you relish discovering a game before it hits the mainstream, give Sol Cesto a try so you can punch a hole in your gaming budget.

A Tactical Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's unlike anything I'm familiar with. The premise is that you need to explore a dungeon, descending floor after floor on a quest for the sun, which has disappeared from this mythical realm. Mechanically, that makes for some recognizable genre framework. Select a character who has attributes and skills, clear floor after floor of enemies, pick up some passive buffs (represented as teeth), and vanquish a few stage-ending champions. Straightforward, right!

The Novel Central System

The way you effectively complete a dungeon room, is unique. Every time you start another stage, you're shown a 4x4 grid of boxes. All spaces either contains a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To proceed, you simply click on one of the four rows, but the exact space you land in is a matter of probability.

You could encounter a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a one-in-four probability of landing on a specific tile in a row.

Then, you'll chances are recalculated. So do you take the risk, or do you opt on a safer line first and attempt some safer moves early? That's the tension between chance and safety at play in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating once you get its rhythm.

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. To illustrate, you might get a perk that will decrease your odds of encountering a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of landing on a reward too.

• Crafting a loadout is about manipulating math as best you can to have a higher chance at selecting the optimal square.
• In one run, I focused my power boosts toward melee prowess and selected all the teeth I could that would increase my odds of attracting me toward monsters of that variety.
• In another run, I constructed my hero around reward boxes and coupled it with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies whenever I opened a chest.

The customization choices are somewhat constrained, but there's enough to engage with to allow you to tweak numbers to your preference.

A Constant Tension

Unsurprisingly, it's still a game of chance. There remains the possibility that you have an 80% chance to land on the square you want but ultimately choose a foe that would deplete your remaining life. All selections is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you navigate a level and decide when to press onward or to proceed to the following level as opposed to pushing your luck.

Items like explosive devices assist in minimizing the chance, just like some character abilities. A particular character's unique ability, activated once making four moves, allows players to click on a column in place of a row on a turn. If you play this move wisely, you can save that move for an optimal time to circumvent a perilous selection. You'll find an astonishing amount of nuance in the simple act of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is remaining in its preview phase, and it has a final update to go before the full version is unleashed. Another playable adventurer and a fresh guardian are expected to drop by the end of January. The 1.0 release probably isn't much later, but the studio haven't set a final date yet.

A Parting Endorsement

Whenever its 1.0 launch occurs, you might want to put Sol Cesto in your sights. For the past week, I've been completely engrossed with it, finding all of small details and storing my run rewards in each run to access a constant flow of persistent upgrades, such as additional heroes and items I can buy during a run. As of now, I am yet to completed the dungeon, and I have a sense I'll still be pursuing that objective when 1.0 finally hits. I'm committed for the complete journey.