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Having experienced in excess of 200 recent games this year, I am officially wrapping things up on 2025. My annual roundup is published, and I feel content with the concluding selections, even knowing a host of fantastic releases likely fell through the cracks. At this point, it's nothing for me to do except relax, disconnect briefly, and maybe enjoy a pleasant stroll in the— ah crap, discovered one more great game. So much for my plans!

A Premature Front-Runner Appears

With my casual gaming time, usually reserved for a handful of quirky titles, I've encountered what could be my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive roguelike for Windows PC that reimagines a classic dungeon crawler into a chance-driven game of significant risk danger and payoff. View this an early adopter's heads-up: If you take pride in knowing about a game before it hits the mainstream, sample Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your indie credit card.

A Strategic Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's a departure from all I'm familiar with. The concept is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, descending floor after floor on a quest for the sun, which has disappeared from the fantasy world. In practice, this creates some standard crawl progression. Pick a hero possessing unique parameters and powers, defeat enemies on every stage of enemies, collect some passive buffs (represented as teeth), and vanquish a few biome bosses. Simple enough!

The Novel Core Mechanic

The way you truly navigate a chamber, though. Each instance you start another stage, you see a 4x4 grid of boxes. All spaces features a monster, a loot box, 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 land in is a matter of probability.

You may face a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You begin with a 25% chance of landing on any given square in a row.

After that, the odds shift. So do you take the risk, or do you click on a different row first and attempt some safer moves early? That's the push-your-luck gameplay at play in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing after you develop a feel for it.

Manipulating Probability

The meta-layer is that your odds can be manipulated through a run by collecting teeth that modify the types of squares you're more attracted to. To illustrate, you may obtain a perk that will decrease your odds of landing on a trap, but will also decrease the odds of landing on a reward too.

• Crafting a loadout is about manipulating math to the utmost to have a improved likelihood at getting your desired outcome.
• In one run, I focused my power boosts toward brute force and selected all the teeth I could that would boost my chances of being drawn to monsters with that damage type.
• During a separate session, I constructed my hero around reward boxes and combined that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters every time I opened a chest.

The customization choices are not endless, but it provides ample to engage with to enable you to influence the odds according to your strategy.

A Persistent Tension

Of course, it's still a game of chance. You constantly face the possibility that you have a high probability to hit the square you want but ultimately choose on an enemy that would deplete your last bit of health. Each click is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you work through a stage and determine if to continue selecting or when to move on to the next floor rather than testing fate.

Consumables including destructive ordnance help cut down the chance, just like some hero powers. A particular character's special power, powered up by selecting four tiles, lets gamers to choose a vertical line rather than a horizontal row on a turn. Should you use your cards right, you can reserve that option for a crucial point to sidestep a dangerous choice. You'll find an astonishing level of strategy in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is still in its preview phase, and it has at least one more update to go until the full version is launched. An additional hero and a fresh guardian are scheduled to arrive by the end of January. The full launch likely won't be far behind, but the studio haven't committed to a concrete launch day yet.

A Parting Recommendation

Regardless of when it's fully released, you might want to put Sol Cesto in your sights. I have been thoroughly captivated with it, discovering its little secrets and storing my run rewards every session to unlock a steady stream of persistent upgrades, featuring new characters and items I can buy mid-attempt. I still haven't found the deepest level, and I suspect I'll continue attempting that goal when the official release drops. Count me in for the entire experience.