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After playing in excess of 200 new releases this year, I'm formally turning the page on 2025. My year-end list is published, and I am at peace with the concluding selections, accepting that numerous stellar titles probably slipped through the cracks. Now, there's job is to other than unwind, take a short break, and maybe enjoy a nice walk in the— well, shoot, stumbled upon a great game. So much for my plans!

A Premature Contender Emerges

In my more casual gaming time, typically earmarked for a selection of unusual games, I've come across potentially my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a classic labyrinth explorer into a probability-fueled game of high stakes danger and payoff. Take this as a preview for the in-the-know: If you take pride in knowing about a game before it hits the mainstream, give Sol Cesto a try so you can burn a spot in your gaming budget.

A Tactical Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's different from everything I'm familiar with. The setup is that you must venture into a dungeon, going down level by level to find the sun, which has gone missing from the fantasy world. In practice, this creates some standard crawl progression. Select a character possessing unique parameters and powers, defeat enemies on every stage of foes, collect some passive buffs (in the form of teeth), and overcome a few area guardians. Easy to grasp!

The Unique Core Mechanic

The method by which you actually clear a chamber, is unique. Every time you begin a fresh level, you see a 4x4 grid of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To explore a room, you simply click on one of the horizontal lines, but which square you select is a matter of probability.

You may face a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You start with a 25% chance of landing on any given square in a row.

Then, you'll probabilities change. The question becomes: Do you press your luck, or do you opt on a different row first and try to make less risky choices early? That's the tension between chance and safety on display in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing once you get a feel for it.

Influencing Chance

The roguelike twist is that your percentages can be shaped during an attempt by picking up teeth that modify the types of squares you're more likely to land on. For example, you could acquire a perk that will reduce the probability of landing on a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of finding a reward too.

• Crafting a loadout is about manipulating math as best you can to have a better shot at getting your desired outcome.
• During one attempt, I invested my power boosts toward physical attack/defense and chose every teeth I could that would boost my chances of landing on monsters of that variety.
• During a separate session, I constructed my hero around loot caches and combined that with a perk that would debuff nearby foes whenever I claimed a reward.

The customization choices are not endless, but there's enough to work with to enable you to influence numbers the way you want.

A Persistent Gamble

Unsurprisingly, it's still a game of chance. You constantly face the risk that you have a high probability to hit the preferred space but end up landing a monster that would deplete your last bit of health. All selections is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you navigate a level and decide when to press onward or to advance to the following level rather than risking it all.

Tools such as explosive devices aid in reducing the chance, as do some character abilities. One hero's special power, charged after clearing four squares, allows players to choose a vertical column rather than a horizontal row on a turn. Should you use your cards right, you can save that move for the right moment to avoid a risky decision. You'll find an astonishing degree of depth in the basic action of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is currently in development, and it has a final update scheduled before the complete edition is released. A new character and a additional end-level foe are expected to drop before the conclusion of January. The 1.0 release may not be long after, but the creators haven't announced a final date yet.

A Parting Thought

Whenever its 1.0 launch occurs, you ought to put Sol Cesto in your sights. For the past week, I've been positively obsessed with it, finding all of little secrets and storing my run rewards every session to reveal a continuous trickle of meta progression rewards, featuring fresh adventurers and items I can buy while playing. I still haven't completed the dungeon, and I suspect I will remain working on that task when the official release drops. Sign me up for the long haul.