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After playing more than 200 new releases this year, I am officially closing the book on 2025. My year-end list is out in the world, and I feel content with the concluding selections, accepting that a host of fantastic releases probably slipped through the cracks. Now, there's job is to except relax, disconnect briefly, and maybe enjoy a pleasant stroll in the— ah crap, discovered one more great game. And just like that, goodbye to my peaceful respite!

A Surprising Contender Emerges

With my casual gaming time, often set aside for a selection of unusual games, I've come across what might become my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive roguelike for Windows PC that reimagines a conventional labyrinth explorer into a probability-fueled game of high stakes danger and payoff. Take this as a hipster's insider tip: If you enjoy being aware of a game before it's cool, give Sol Cesto a try so you can burn a spot in your gaming budget.

A Strategic Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's a departure from all I've previously experienced. The concept is that you need to explore a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper in search of the sun, which has disappeared from this mythical realm. In practice, that makes for some standard crawl progression. Choose an adventurer with their own attributes and skills, clear floor after floor of monsters, acquire some stat improvements (in the form of teeth), and vanquish a few stage-ending champions. Simple enough!

The Unique Core Mechanic

The way you actually clear a dungeon room, is unique. Each instance you enter a new floor, you're shown a four-by-four matrix of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To proceed, you just select on one of the horizontal lines, but which square you land in is a matter of probability.

You might see a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a one-in-four probability of hitting a specific tile in a row.

Subsequently, your chances are recalculated. So do you press your luck, or do you click on a alternative option first and attempt some safer moves early? This is the risk-reward dynamic at play in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing after you develop a feel for it.

Manipulating Probability

The procedural hook is that your percentages can be shaped during an attempt by picking up teeth that alter which objects you're more likely to land on. For example, you might get a perk that will lower your chances of hitting a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of finding a reward too.

• Developing a strategy is about manipulating math as best you can to have a better shot at getting your desired outcome.
• In one run, I put all my stat upgrades toward brute force and picked as many teeth possible that would improve my probability of being drawn to monsters of that variety.
• In another run, I constructed my hero around treasure chests and combined that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters each time I opened a chest.

The build options are not endless, but it provides ample to engage with to allow you to tweak numbers to your preference.

An Ever-Present Risk

Unsurprisingly, it remains a game of chance. You constantly face the chance that you have a high probability to hit the desired tile but wind up hitting a monster that would deplete your remaining life. Every move is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you clear a floor out and choose whether to continue selecting or to proceed to the subsequent stage instead of pushing your luck.

Items like destructive ordnance assist in minimizing the chance, similar to some hero powers. A particular character's unique ability, charged after making four moves, lets gamers to select a vertical line rather than a horizontal row for that move. Should you use your cards right, you can save that move for a crucial point to circumvent a perilous selection. There's a shocking amount of nuance in the simple act of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is still in development, and it has a final update to go until the full version is launched. An additional hero and a new boss are planned for release sometime in January. The official version likely won't be far behind, but the creators haven't set a final date yet.

A Final Thought

No matter when it's fully released, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your radar. For the past week, I've been completely engrossed with it, discovering its small details and saving my accumulated currency per attempt to access a constant flow of persistent upgrades, featuring new characters and items I can buy while playing. I still haven't completed the dungeon, and I suspect I'll still be working on that task when 1.0 finally hits. Count me in for the long haul.