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After playing in excess of 200 fresh titles this year, I'm formally turning the page on 2025. My annual roundup is out in the world, and I am at peace with the ultimate rankings, accepting that a host of excellent games likely fell through the cracks. Currently, my only plan is to except relax, take a short break, and maybe enjoy a nice walk in the— ah crap, found another amazing experience. And just like that, goodbye to my peaceful respite!

A Surprising Contender Emerges

In my more laid-back sessions, typically earmarked for a few oddball curiosities, I've discovered potentially my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar roguelike for Windows PC that breaks down a conventional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of significant risk peril and prize. Consider this a preview for the in-the-know: If you relish in knowing about a game before it's cool, sample Sol Cesto 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 unlike anything I've previously experienced. The setup is that you need to explore a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper in search of the sun, which has vanished from this mythical realm. Mechanically, that makes for some recognizable genre framework. Pick a hero possessing unique stats and abilities, clear floor after floor of foes, collect some passive buffs (in the form of teeth), and defeat a few stage-ending champions. Straightforward, right!

The Distinctive Core Mechanic

The method by which you effectively complete a area, however. Every time you enter a new floor, you're shown a four-by-four matrix of boxes. All spaces holds a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To explore a room, you simply click on one of the horizontal lines, but the specific tile you select is determined by luck.

You may face a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a 25% chance of landing on a particular space in a row.

Then, you'll chances are recalculated. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you opt on a different row first and attempt some safer moves early? Herein lies the push-your-luck gameplay on display in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing once you get an understanding of it.

Shaping the Odds

The meta-layer is that your odds can be manipulated during an attempt by gathering teeth that modify the types of squares you're drawn toward. To illustrate, you could acquire a perk that will decrease your odds of hitting a trap, but will also decrease the odds of getting a treasure chest too.

• Developing a strategy is about tweaking the numbers optimally to have a better shot at getting your desired outcome.
• During one attempt, I focused my power boosts toward melee prowess and chose every teeth I could that would increase my odds of attracting me toward monsters with that damage type.
• In another run, I developed my adventurer around reward boxes and paired that with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies whenever I claimed a reward.

The build options are not endless, but it provides ample to work with to enable you to influence probabilities according to your strategy.

A Persistent Gamble

Unsurprisingly, it's still a game of chance. There remains the chance that you have a likely outcome to land on the square you want but ultimately choose a foe that would eliminate your final hit point. Each click is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you navigate a level and decide when to press onward or when to move on to the next floor as opposed to risking it all.

Items like enemy-killing bombs aid in reducing the chance, just like some character abilities. An adventurer's signature move, charged after selecting four tiles, lets gamers to click on a vertical line in place of a row on a turn. Should you use this strategically, you can save that move for a crucial point to sidestep a dangerous choice. There's a shocking degree of depth in the simple act of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is remaining in its preview phase, and it has at least one more update scheduled until the full version is released. An additional hero and a fresh guardian are scheduled to arrive before the conclusion of January. The official version likely won't be far behind, but the game's developers haven't announced a specific release window yet.

A Concluding Thought

Whenever the complete game arrives, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your radar. I have been completely engrossed with it, discovering its small details and saving my accumulated currency in each run to access a constant flow of permanent unlocks, featuring additional heroes and items purchasable during a run. To this day, I have not reached the bottom, and I get the feeling I'll still be working on that task when 1.0 finally hits. Count me in for the long haul.