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Having experienced well over 200 fresh titles this year, I am officially wrapping things up on 2025. My annual roundup is out in the world, and I'm satisfied with the final results, even knowing a host of excellent games may have dropped under the radar. Now, there's nothing for me to do other than unwind, take a short break, and possibly go for a refreshing hike in the— well, shoot, found another amazing experience. So much for my intentions!

A Surprising Contender Emerges

In my more casual gaming time, typically earmarked for a handful of quirky titles, I've discovered what might become my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar roguelike for Windows PC that reimagines a traditional dungeon crawler into a chance-driven game of major consequence peril and prize. Consider this an early adopter's heads-up: If you take pride being aware of a game before it hits the mainstream, test out Sol Cesto so you can punch a hole in your indie credit card.

A Calculated Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's a departure from all I'm familiar with. The setup is that you need to explore a dungeon, descending floor after floor to find the sun, which has disappeared from this mythical realm. Mechanically, this results in some recognizable genre framework. Pick a hero who has attributes and skills, clear floor after floor of enemies, pick up some permanent upgrades (represented as teeth), and vanquish a few biome bosses. Easy to grasp!

The Distinctive Gameplay Loop

How you truly navigate a dungeon room, is unique. Each instance you begin a fresh level, you see a sixteen-square board of boxes. Each square features a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To explore a room, you simply click on one of the four rows, but which square you select is a matter of probability.

You could encounter 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.

Subsequently, your odds shift. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you opt on a alternative option first and attempt some less risky choices early? That's the push-your-luck gameplay at play in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating when you acquire its rhythm.

Influencing Chance

The meta-layer is that your percentages can be shaped through a run by picking up teeth that alter which objects you're drawn toward. For example, you might get a perk that will decrease your odds of landing on a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of finding a treasure chest too.

• Developing a strategy is about influencing the statistics optimally to have a improved likelihood at getting your desired outcome.
• On a particular session, I invested my power boosts toward brute force and chose every teeth possible that would improve my probability of landing on monsters of that variety.
• In another run, I developed my adventurer around loot caches and coupled it with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters whenever I secured loot.

The strategic possibilities are limited, but there's enough to experiment with to enable you to influence probabilities according to your strategy.

A Persistent Gamble

Naturally, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There's always the risk that you have a likely outcome to land on the square you want but wind up hitting on an enemy that would take out your last bit of health. All selections is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you navigate a level and decide when to press onward or to proceed to the next floor rather than pushing your luck.

Items like destructive ordnance aid in reducing the chance, just like some hero powers. An adventurer's unique ability, charged after selecting four tiles, allows players to click on a vertical column in place of a horizontal line for that move. By employing this strategically, you can reserve that option for a crucial point to circumvent a perilous selection. There's a shocking degree of depth in the simple act of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is remaining in development, and it has a final update to go before the final game is unleashed. A new character and a fresh guardian are expected to drop before the conclusion of January. The official version likely won't be far behind, but the creators haven't committed to a concrete launch day yet.

A Concluding Endorsement

Regardless of when it's fully released, you ought to put Sol Cesto in your sights. I've been thoroughly captivated with it, finding all of hidden nuances and storing my run rewards in each run to unlock a steady stream of meta progression rewards, such as additional heroes and items available for acquisition while playing. I still haven't reached the bottom, and I suspect I'll still be pursuing that objective when the full version launches. Count me in for the entire experience.