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Following my time with more than 200 recent games this year, I'm formally turning the page on 2025. My year-end list is live, and I am at peace with the concluding selections, despite being aware a host of stellar titles likely fell through the cracks. Currently, my only nothing for me to do but sit back, take a short break, and maybe enjoy a pleasant stroll in the— oh no, stumbled upon a brilliant title. So much for my intentions!

A Surprising Front-Runner Appears

With my off-hours play, often set aside for a handful of quirky titles, I've encountered what might become my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual roguelike for Windows PC that reimagines a traditional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of major consequence peril and prize. Take this as a hipster's insider tip: If you relish being aware of a game before it's popular, test out Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your gaming budget.

A Tactical Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's unlike anything I'm familiar with. The premise is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper on a quest for the sun, which has gone missing from the fantasy world. When you play, that makes for some recognizable genre framework. Pick a hero with their own attributes and skills, fight through each level of foes, collect some permanent upgrades (represented as teeth), and overcome a few area guardians. Straightforward, right!

The Unique Core Mechanic

The way you truly navigate a dungeon room, though. Each instance you enter a new floor, you see a sixteen-square board of boxes. Every tile features a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To make a move, you just select on one of the four rows, but the specific tile you end up on is determined by luck.

You may face a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You initially will have a one-in-four probability of selecting a specific tile in a row.

After that, the chances are recalculated. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you choose on a safer line first and try to make safer moves early? Herein lies the risk-reward dynamic at play in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing once you get its rhythm.

Manipulating Probability

The procedural hook is that your odds can be manipulated over the course of a session by collecting teeth that alter which objects you're more attracted to. To illustrate, you could acquire a perk that will lower your chances of landing on a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of landing on a reward too.

• Developing a strategy is about tweaking the numbers optimally to have a higher chance at landing where you want.
• On a particular session, I focused my stat upgrades toward brute force and picked as many teeth I could that would increase my odds of landing on monsters of that variety.
• On a different attempt, I constructed my hero around treasure chests and paired that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters every time I claimed a reward.

The build options are not endless, but it provides ample to engage with to enable you to influence numbers the way you want.

A Persistent Tension

Naturally, it remains a game of chance. There's always the chance that you have a likely outcome to select the preferred space but ultimately choose a foe that would eliminate your last bit of health. All selections is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you work through a stage and decide when to press onward or when to move on to the following level instead of pushing your luck.

Items like enemy-killing bombs assist in minimizing the chance, similar to some special skills. One hero's special power, charged after making four moves, allows players to choose a column rather than a horizontal row on a turn. Should you use this move wisely, you can hold that ability for the right moment to sidestep a dangerous choice. There's a shocking amount of nuance in the simple act of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is currently in its preview phase, and it has at least one more update planned before the full version is released. An additional hero and a new boss are scheduled to arrive before the conclusion of January. The full launch may not be long after, but the creators haven't committed to a specific release window yet.

A Parting Thought

Whenever the complete game arrives, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been positively obsessed with it, uncovering each of little secrets and banking my earned gold every session to access a constant flow of permanent unlocks, including fresh adventurers and items I can buy during a run. As of now, I am yet to found the deepest level, and I suspect I'll still be working on that task when 1.0 finally hits. Sign me up for the entire experience.