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After playing well over 200 recent games this year, I am officially turning the page on 2025. My annual roundup is out in the world, and I am at peace with the final results, accepting that plenty of stellar titles probably slipped by the wayside. Now, there's plan is to other than unwind, take a short break, and possibly go for a nice walk in the— well, shoot, stumbled upon a brilliant title. So much for my peaceful respite!

An Early Front-Runner Appears

In my more laid-back sessions, often set aside for a selection of unusual games, I've encountered what might become my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual roguelike for Windows PC that breaks down a classic dungeon crawler into a probability-fueled game of high stakes risk and reward. Consider this a hipster's insider tip: If you relish in knowing about a game before it's cool, give Sol Cesto a try so you can make a dent in your wallet for unique titles.

A Strategic Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's unlike anything I've ever played. The setup is that you need to explore a dungeon, descending floor after floor in search of the sun, which has vanished from the fantasy world. Mechanically, that makes for some familiar roguelike structure. Select a character possessing unique stats and abilities, clear floor after floor of monsters, acquire some permanent upgrades (in the form of teeth), and overcome a few biome bosses. Straightforward, right!

The Distinctive Central System

The way you actually clear a area, however. Each instance you enter a new floor, the game presents a sixteen-square board of boxes. Every tile either contains a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To make a move, you simply click on one of the horizontal lines, but the exact space you land in is up to chance.

You could encounter a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a one-in-four probability of landing on a particular space in a row.

Subsequently, your odds shift. So do you go for it, or do you opt on a different row first and attempt some safer moves early? This is the tension between chance and safety at play in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing once you get its rhythm.

Influencing Chance

The procedural hook is that your percentages can be shaped through a run by gathering teeth that alter which objects you're more attracted to. As an instance, you might get a perk that will decrease your odds of encountering a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of landing on a treasure chest too.

• Developing a strategy is about tweaking the numbers optimally to have a higher chance at landing where you want.
• In one run, I invested my attribute improvements toward physical attack/defense and picked as many teeth I could that would increase my odds of attracting me toward monsters of that variety.
• During a separate session, I developed my adventurer around reward boxes and coupled it with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies each time I opened a chest.

The customization choices are somewhat constrained, but it provides ample to work with to allow you to tweak the odds to your preference.

An Ever-Present Gamble

Naturally, 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 end up landing on an enemy that would take out your final hit point. Each click is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you clear a floor out and determine if to press onward or when to move on to the subsequent stage rather than risking it all.

Consumables including enemy-killing bombs aid in reducing the chance, just like some hero powers. One hero's signature move, charged after selecting four tiles, allows players to click on a vertical line rather than a horizontal row for that move. By employing this move wisely, you can hold that ability for the right moment to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising degree of depth in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is still in its preview phase, and it has a final update to go until the full version is unleashed. An additional hero and a additional end-level foe are scheduled to arrive before the conclusion of January. The 1.0 release likely won't be far behind, but the game's developers haven't announced a specific release window yet.

A Parting Thought

No matter when the complete game arrives, you ought to put Sol Cesto in your sights. I've been completely engrossed with it, uncovering each of little secrets and banking my earned gold every session to reveal a continuous trickle of meta progression rewards, featuring fresh adventurers and items I can buy mid-attempt. As of now, I am yet to reached the bottom, and I have a sense I'll still be working on that task when the official release drops. I'm committed for the entire experience.