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Having experienced well over 200 fresh titles this year, It's time to closing the book on 2025. My annual roundup is out in the world, and I'm satisfied with the final results, accepting that a host of stellar titles likely fell through the cracks. At this point, it's job is to but sit back, take a short break, and maybe enjoy a refreshing hike in the— well, shoot, found another great game. There go my peaceful respite!

An Early Contender Emerges

During my casual gaming time, usually reserved for a selection of unusual games, I've discovered potentially my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a traditional labyrinth explorer into a luck-based game of significant risk peril and prize. View this a preview for the in-the-know: If you take pride in knowing about a game before it hits the mainstream, sample Sol Cesto so you can punch a hole in your wallet for unique titles.

A Calculated Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's unlike anything I'm familiar with. The concept is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper on a quest for the sun, which has disappeared from the fantasy world. When you play, this results in some recognizable genre framework. Choose an adventurer possessing unique parameters and powers, fight through each level of foes, pick up some stat improvements (which are teeth), and vanquish a few biome bosses. Easy to grasp!

The Unique Core Mechanic

The way you effectively complete a dungeon room, is unique. Whenever you begin a fresh level, the game presents a 4x4 grid of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To explore a room, you choose on one of the four rows, but the exact space you land in is a matter of probability.

You might see a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You start with a one-in-four probability of selecting a particular space in a row.

Then, you'll odds shift. So do you go for it, or do you choose on a alternative option first and try to make safer moves early? Herein lies the tension between chance and safety in action in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing after you develop an understanding of it.

Influencing Chance

The roguelike twist is that your probabilities can be influenced through a run by collecting teeth that change what things you're drawn toward. As an instance, you may obtain a perk that will reduce the probability of landing on a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of getting a treasure chest too.

• Crafting a loadout is about tweaking the numbers to the utmost to have a better shot at selecting the optimal square.
• On a particular session, I invested my attribute improvements toward melee prowess and chose every teeth I could that would boost my chances of attracting me toward monsters with that damage type.
• In another run, I built my character around treasure chests and combined that with a perk that would debuff nearby foes every time I opened a chest.

The strategic possibilities are limited, but they are sufficient to experiment with to let you manipulate numbers the way you want.

A Constant Gamble

Of course, it's still a game of chance. You constantly face the chance that you have an 80% chance to hit the desired tile but end up landing a monster that would eliminate your final hit point. Every move is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you clear a floor out and choose whether to continue selecting or to advance to the next floor rather than testing fate.

Consumables including destructive ordnance help cut down the chance, as do some character abilities. One hero's signature move, activated once making four moves, allows players to click on a vertical line in place of a horizontal line on a turn. Should you use this move wisely, you can save that move for the right moment to sidestep a dangerous choice. There's a shocking amount of nuance in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is currently in early access, and it has another update scheduled before the complete edition is launched. Another playable adventurer and a fresh guardian are expected to drop before the conclusion of January. The official version may not be long after, but the creators haven't committed to a final date yet.

A Concluding Endorsement

No matter when the complete game arrives, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been positively obsessed with it, discovering its little secrets and storing my run rewards in each run to unlock a steady stream of persistent upgrades, featuring additional heroes and items available for acquisition while playing. I still haven't found the deepest level, and I suspect I'll still be pursuing that objective when the full version launches. Count me in for the long haul.