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After playing more than 200 recent games this year, I am officially closing the book on 2025. My annual roundup is published, and I am at peace with the concluding selections, accepting that plenty of stellar titles may have dropped under the radar. At this point, it's plan is to other than unwind, unplug a little, and perhaps take a pleasant stroll in the— oh no, stumbled upon a great game. There go my peaceful respite!

An Early Contender Emerges

With my off-hours play, typically earmarked for a few oddball curiosities, I've discovered what might become my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive roguelike for Windows PC that breaks down a traditional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of high stakes peril and prize. Take this as a hipster's insider tip: If you enjoy in knowing about a game before it hits the mainstream, sample Sol Cesto so you can burn a spot in your indie credit card.

A Tactical Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's unlike anything I've previously experienced. The premise is that you need to explore a dungeon, going down level by level to find the sun, which has vanished from its world. In practice, this results in some familiar roguelike structure. Select a character possessing unique stats and abilities, defeat enemies on every stage of monsters, pick up some passive buffs (which are teeth), and defeat a few area guardians. Straightforward, right!

The Distinctive Central System

The way you effectively complete a area, though. Every time you begin a fresh level, the game presents a four-by-four matrix of boxes. All spaces holds a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To make a move, you choose on one of the four rows, but which square you land in is a matter of probability.

You might see a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a 25% chance of landing on a specific tile in a row.

After that, the probabilities change. So do you go for it, or do you choose on a safer line first and attempt some more cautious selections early? This is the tension between chance and safety at play in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating when you acquire its rhythm.

Influencing Chance

The procedural hook is that your percentages can be shaped during an attempt by gathering teeth that alter which objects you're more likely to land on. As an instance, you could acquire a perk that will decrease your odds of encountering a trap, but will also decrease the odds of getting a treasure chest too.

• Crafting a loadout is about tweaking the numbers to the utmost to have a better shot at landing where you want.
• On a particular session, I invested my stat upgrades toward brute force and chose every teeth I could that would improve my probability of landing on monsters of that variety.
• In another run, I developed my adventurer around treasure chests and combined that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters whenever I secured loot.

The build options are somewhat constrained, but there's enough to work with to enable you to influence numbers to your preference.

A Persistent Gamble

Of course, it's still a game of chance. You constantly face the possibility that you have an 80% chance to hit the desired tile but wind up hitting on an enemy that would deplete your final hit point. Every move is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you navigate a level and decide when to continue selecting or to proceed to the subsequent stage rather than pushing your luck.

Consumables including destructive ordnance assist in minimizing the chance, similar to some hero powers. One hero's unique ability, activated once making four moves, allows players to click on a vertical line rather than a horizontal row on a turn. Should you use this move wisely, you can hold that ability for a crucial point to sidestep a dangerous choice. You'll find an astonishing level of strategy in the simple act of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is still in early access, and it has at least one more update to go until the final game is launched. A new character and a additional end-level foe are planned for release sometime in January. The official version probably isn't far behind, but the studio haven't committed to a specific release window yet.

A Final Endorsement

No matter when its 1.0 launch occurs, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your radar. I've been positively obsessed with it, discovering its little secrets and banking my earned gold in each run to access a constant flow of meta progression rewards, such as fresh adventurers and items I can buy mid-attempt. As of now, I am yet to completed the dungeon, and I suspect I will remain working on that task when the official release drops. Count me in for the entire experience.