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Following my time with more than 200 new releases this year, I'm formally wrapping things up on 2025. My annual roundup is out in the world, and I'm satisfied with the ultimate rankings, even knowing plenty of excellent games probably slipped through the cracks. At this point, it's plan is to but sit back, unplug a little, and possibly go for a nice walk in the— oh no, stumbled upon a brilliant title. So much for my plans!

A Premature Front-Runner Appears

In my more casual gaming time, often set aside for a few oddball curiosities, I've come across potentially my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a traditional dungeon crawler into a probability-fueled game of high stakes danger and payoff. Consider this an early adopter's heads-up: If you relish discovering a game before it hits the mainstream, give Sol Cesto a try so you can burn a spot in your gaming budget.

A Strategic Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's different from everything I'm familiar with. The concept is that you must venture into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper to find the sun, which has vanished from its world. In practice, this results in some familiar roguelike structure. Choose an adventurer possessing unique stats and abilities, clear floor after floor of monsters, acquire some permanent upgrades (represented as teeth), and vanquish a few biome bosses. Straightforward, right!

The Unique Core Mechanic

The method by which you actually clear a dungeon room, though. Each instance you start another stage, you're shown a four-by-four matrix of boxes. All spaces holds a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To explore a room, you choose on one of the horizontal lines, but the specific tile you end up on is up to chance.

You could encounter a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You begin with a one-in-four probability of landing on any given square in a row.

Subsequently, your probabilities change. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you click on a different row first and attempt some more cautious selections early? That's the push-your-luck gameplay on display in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating after you develop its rhythm.

Shaping the Odds

The meta-layer is that your probabilities can be influenced through a run by gathering teeth that modify the types of squares you're more attracted to. For example, you might get a perk that will decrease your odds of hitting a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of finding a reward too.

• Developing a strategy is about tweaking the numbers as best you can to have a higher chance at selecting the optimal square.
• On a particular session, I put all my power boosts toward physical attack/defense and selected all the teeth possible that would increase my odds of attracting me toward monsters of that variety.
• In another run, I built my character around loot caches and paired that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters every time I secured loot.

The strategic possibilities are somewhat constrained, but it provides ample to engage with to enable you to influence the odds according to your strategy.

A Constant Risk

Unsurprisingly, it remains a game of chance. There remains the risk that you have a likely outcome to hit the square you want but wind up hitting on an enemy that would deplete your last bit of health. Each click is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you work through a stage and determine if to keep clicking or to advance to the next floor rather than testing fate.

Consumables including destructive ordnance assist in minimizing the chance, as do some character abilities. A particular character's unique ability, charged after selecting four tiles, allows players to select a vertical line in place of a row during that action. Should you use your cards right, you can save that move for a crucial point to avoid a risky decision. You'll find an astonishing degree of depth in the simple act of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is remaining in early access, and it has a final update scheduled before the complete edition is launched. Another playable adventurer and a additional end-level foe are scheduled to arrive sometime in January. The full launch may not be far behind, but the studio haven't announced a final date yet.

A Concluding Endorsement

No matter when it's fully released, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your radar. I have been completely engrossed with it, finding all of small details and banking my earned gold in each run to unlock a steady stream of meta progression rewards, such as new characters and items I can buy mid-attempt. As of now, I am yet to completed the dungeon, and I suspect I'll continue attempting that goal when 1.0 finally hits. I'm committed for the complete journey.