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Having experienced more than 200 new releases this year, I am officially turning the page on 2025. My year-end list is published, and I'm satisfied with the final results, despite being aware numerous fantastic releases may have dropped through the cracks. At this point, it's job is to except relax, take a short break, and perhaps take a refreshing hike in the— well, shoot, found another great game. And just like that, goodbye to my intentions!

A Premature Favorite Surfaces

In my more laid-back sessions, often set aside for a few oddball curiosities, I've discovered potentially my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive roguelike for Windows PC that breaks down a classic labyrinth explorer into a luck-based game of significant risk peril and prize. Take this as a hipster's insider tip: If you take pride discovering a game before it's cool, give Sol Cesto a try so you can burn a spot in your wallet for unique titles.

A Calculated Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's a departure from all I've ever played. The setup is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, descending floor after floor to find the sun, which has vanished from the fantasy world. When you play, this creates some familiar roguelike structure. Pick a hero who has attributes and skills, defeat enemies on every stage of monsters, collect some passive buffs (in the form of teeth), and defeat a few biome bosses. Easy to grasp!

The Distinctive Core Mechanic

The method by which you truly navigate a dungeon room, though. Every time you start another stage, you see a four-by-four matrix of boxes. Every tile either contains a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To make a move, you simply click on one of the four rows, but the exact space you select is up to chance.

You may face a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a one-in-four probability of landing on any given square in a row.

Then, you'll 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 push-your-luck gameplay on display in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing after you develop its rhythm.

Influencing Chance

The procedural hook is that your probabilities can be influenced through a run by collecting teeth that modify the types of squares you're more attracted to. For example, you may obtain a perk that will decrease your odds of encountering a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of finding a treasure chest too.

• Creating a build is about tweaking the numbers as best you can to have a improved likelihood at selecting the optimal square.
• In one run, I invested my power boosts toward melee prowess and selected all the teeth I could that would increase my odds of being drawn to monsters with that damage type.
• In another run, I developed my adventurer around reward boxes and paired that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters whenever I opened a chest.

The strategic possibilities are somewhat constrained, but there's enough to engage with to let you manipulate numbers the way you want.

A Persistent Risk

Naturally, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There's always the risk that you have a likely outcome to land on the preferred space but wind up hitting on an enemy that would take out your last bit of health. Every move is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you work through a stage and determine if to press onward or to advance to the next floor instead of pushing your luck.

Items like destructive ordnance assist in minimizing the chance, similar to some character abilities. One hero's unique ability, powered up by clearing four squares, enables you to choose a vertical column in place of a horizontal row for that move. Should you use this strategically, you can save that move for an optimal time to circumvent a perilous selection. It's a surprising degree of depth in the simple act of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is currently in development, and it has at least one more update to go before the full version is unleashed. A new character and a new boss are planned for release before the conclusion of January. The official version probably isn't much later, but the studio haven't set a final date yet.

A Parting Endorsement

Regardless of when the complete game arrives, you might want to put Sol Cesto in your sights. For the past week, I've been completely engrossed with it, finding all of little secrets and storing my run rewards per attempt to access a constant flow of permanent unlocks, featuring fresh adventurers and items I can buy while playing. I still haven't completed the dungeon, and I have a sense I will remain attempting that goal when the full version launches. Count me in for the entire experience.