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Following my time with well over 200 new releases this year, I'm formally closing the book on 2025. My best-of compilation is out in the world, and I am at peace with the concluding selections, even knowing plenty of stellar titles likely fell by the wayside. At this point, it's plan is to except relax, unplug a little, and maybe enjoy a pleasant stroll in the— ah crap, found another brilliant title. And just like that, goodbye to my plans!

An Early Contender Emerges

With my casual gaming time, often set aside for a handful of quirky titles, I've come across what could be my earliest beloved game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a classic labyrinth explorer into a luck-based game of high stakes danger and payoff. Consider this an early adopter's heads-up: If you take pride being aware of a game before it's cool, give Sol Cesto a try so you can make a dent in your gaming budget.

A Calculated Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's different from everything I've ever played. The premise is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, going down level by level on a quest for the sun, which has disappeared from its world. When you play, that makes for some recognizable genre framework. Select a character with their own stats and abilities, defeat enemies on every stage of enemies, pick up some passive buffs (which are teeth), and defeat a few biome bosses. Easy to grasp!

The Novel Gameplay Loop

The method by which you truly navigate a dungeon room, is unique. Every time you enter a new floor, you're shown a 4x4 grid of boxes. Every tile holds a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To make a move, you choose on one of the horizontal lines, but the exact space you select is up to chance.

You may face a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You start with a quarter likelihood of selecting a specific tile in a row.

Subsequently, your odds shift. So do you press your luck, or do you click on a alternative option first and try to make less risky choices early? That's the push-your-luck gameplay on display in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating once you get an understanding of it.

Manipulating Probability

The meta-layer is that your odds can be manipulated during an attempt by collecting teeth that change what things you're drawn toward. As an instance, you could acquire a perk that will reduce the probability of hitting a trap, but will also decrease the odds of getting a reward too.

• Crafting a loadout is about tweaking the numbers as best you can to have a higher chance at getting your desired outcome.
• During one attempt, I invested my power boosts toward melee prowess and selected all the teeth possible that would boost my chances of being drawn to monsters aligned with that strength.
• On a different attempt, I built my character around reward boxes and combined that with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies whenever I secured loot.

The customization choices are not endless, but it provides ample to work with to let you manipulate probabilities the way you want.

An Ever-Present Tension

Of course, it's still a game of chance. You constantly face the possibility that you have an 80% chance to land on the square you want but ultimately choose a monster that would eliminate your remaining life. All selections is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you work through a stage and choose whether to continue selecting or to proceed to the subsequent stage as opposed to testing fate.

Items like destructive ordnance aid in reducing the chance, similar to some hero powers. One hero's special power, powered up by making four moves, allows players to select a vertical column instead of a horizontal row for that move. By employing your cards right, you can hold that ability for the right moment to avoid a risky decision. There's a shocking degree of depth in the simple act of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is currently in early access, and it has a final update planned before the full version is unleashed. An additional hero and a additional end-level foe are planned for release before the conclusion of January. The 1.0 release probably isn't far behind, but the creators haven't announced a specific release window yet.

A Final Recommendation

Regardless of when it's fully released, you might want to put Sol Cesto in your sights. I've been positively obsessed with it, discovering its small details and storing my run rewards in each run to access a constant flow of persistent upgrades, featuring new characters and items available for acquisition during a run. To this day, I have not found the deepest level, and I suspect I'll still be attempting that goal when 1.0 finally hits. I'm committed for the entire experience.