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After playing in excess of 200 recent games this year, I'm formally closing the book on 2025. My best-of compilation is live, and I'm satisfied with the ultimate rankings, accepting that plenty of fantastic releases likely fell under the radar. Currently, my only nothing for me to do but sit back, take a short break, and possibly go for a refreshing hike in the— oh no, discovered one more great game. So much for my peaceful respite!

An Early Front-Runner Appears

In my more off-hours play, typically earmarked for a few oddball curiosities, I've encountered what might become my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a classic labyrinth explorer into a chance-driven game of significant risk risk and reward. Take this as an early adopter's heads-up: If you relish discovering a game before it's popular, test out Sol Cesto so you can burn a spot in your gaming budget.

A Calculated Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's unlike anything I've ever played. The premise is that you must venture into a dungeon, going down level by level to find the sun, which has vanished from this mythical realm. When you play, this results in some recognizable genre framework. Pick a hero who has attributes and skills, clear floor after floor of foes, acquire some passive buffs (which are teeth), and vanquish a few biome bosses. Straightforward, right!

The Unique Central System

The method by which you actually clear a chamber, is unique. Each instance you start another stage, the game presents a sixteen-square board of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To make a move, you simply click on one of the four rows, but the exact space you select is determined by luck.

You could encounter a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You start with a one-in-four probability of hitting a particular space in a row.

Then, you'll odds shift. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you choose on a safer line first and attempt some more cautious selections early? This is the push-your-luck gameplay on display in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing once you get a feel for it.

Influencing Chance

The meta-layer is that your percentages can be shaped over the course of a session by collecting teeth that alter which objects you're more attracted to. To illustrate, you may obtain a perk that will reduce the probability of hitting a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of finding a treasure chest too.

• Developing a strategy is about influencing the statistics optimally to have a improved likelihood at selecting the optimal square.
• On a particular session, I invested my attribute improvements toward physical attack/defense and selected all the teeth possible that would boost my chances of attracting me toward monsters aligned with that strength.
• During a separate session, I constructed my hero around loot caches and paired that with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies each time I claimed a reward.

The strategic possibilities are limited, but there's enough to engage with to enable you to influence probabilities to your preference.

A Persistent Risk

Naturally, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There remains the possibility that you have a high probability to hit the square you want but end up landing a monster that would eliminate your last bit of health. All selections is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you clear a floor out and decide when to keep clicking or to advance to the following level rather than pushing your luck.

Items like explosive devices help cut down the chance, as do some character abilities. An adventurer's signature move, charged after making four moves, lets gamers to choose a vertical column in place of a horizontal line during that action. If you play your cards right, you can reserve that option for a crucial point to sidestep a dangerous choice. You'll find an astonishing amount of nuance in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is still in its preview phase, and it has another update scheduled before the complete edition is unleashed. Another playable adventurer and a additional end-level foe are expected to drop by the end of January. The 1.0 release likely won't be far behind, but the studio haven't committed to a concrete launch day yet.

A Concluding Endorsement

No matter when its 1.0 launch occurs, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been thoroughly captivated with it, finding all of hidden nuances and saving my accumulated currency per attempt to unlock a steady stream of permanent unlocks, including fresh adventurers and items available for acquisition while playing. I still haven't found the deepest level, and I have a sense I'll continue attempting that goal when the full version launches. I'm committed for the complete journey.