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Following my time with in excess of 200 fresh titles this year, I am officially turning the page on 2025. My annual roundup is out in the world, and I am at peace with the ultimate rankings, despite being aware a host of fantastic releases likely fell through the cracks. Currently, my only plan is to other than unwind, unplug a little, and possibly go for a pleasant stroll in the— well, shoot, found another brilliant title. There go my peaceful respite!

A Surprising Contender Emerges

With my laid-back sessions, often set aside for a handful of quirky titles, I've come across what might become my earliest beloved game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual roguelike for Windows PC that deconstructs a classic labyrinth explorer into a luck-based game of major consequence peril and prize. View this a hipster's insider tip: If you take pride being aware of a game before it's cool, sample Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your indie credit card.

A Tactical Genre Subversion

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, going down level by level in search of the sun, which has gone missing from this mythical realm. In practice, this results in some familiar roguelike structure. Select a character possessing unique attributes and skills, defeat enemies on every stage of foes, acquire some stat improvements (in the form of teeth), and overcome a few stage-ending champions. Easy to grasp!

The Unique Central System

The method by which you truly navigate a area, though. Every time you enter a new floor, the game presents a four-by-four matrix of boxes. All spaces either contains a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To proceed, you choose on one of the horizontal lines, but the specific tile you end up on is up to chance.

You might see a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You initially will have a quarter likelihood of hitting a specific tile in a row.

After that, the chances are recalculated. The question becomes: Do you press your luck, or do you opt on a alternative option first and attempt some less risky choices early? That's the push-your-luck gameplay in action in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing once you get a feel for it.

Influencing Chance

The procedural hook is that your percentages can be shaped during an attempt by collecting teeth that change what things you're more attracted to. For example, you may obtain a perk that will decrease your odds of hitting a trap, but will also decrease the odds of landing on a treasure chest too.

• Developing a strategy is about manipulating math to the utmost to have a higher chance at landing where you want.
• During one attempt, I put all my power boosts toward melee prowess and selected all the teeth I could that would increase my odds of being drawn to monsters aligned with that strength.
• In another run, I constructed my hero around treasure chests and paired that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters every time I claimed a reward.

The customization choices are somewhat constrained, but there's enough to work with to allow you to tweak the odds the way you want.

An Ever-Present Risk

Unsurprisingly, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There's always the possibility that you have an 80% chance to land on the preferred space but ultimately choose a foe that would take out your final hit point. Each click is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you work through a stage and choose whether to continue selecting or to proceed to the following level instead of pushing your luck.

Consumables including explosive devices help cut down the chance, similar to some special skills. One hero's special power, powered up by selecting four tiles, allows players to select a vertical line rather than a row on a turn. Should you use this move wisely, you can reserve that option for an optimal time to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising amount of nuance in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is currently in early access, and it has at least one more update scheduled until the complete edition is launched. An additional hero and a new boss are planned for release by the end of January. The 1.0 release likely won't be much later, but the studio haven't set a specific release window yet.

A Parting Recommendation

No matter when its 1.0 launch occurs, you might want to put Sol Cesto in your sights. For the past week, I've been thoroughly captivated with it, discovering its small details and banking my earned gold in each run to reveal a continuous trickle of meta progression rewards, such as new characters and items available for acquisition mid-attempt. I still haven't reached the bottom, and I suspect I will remain attempting that goal when 1.0 finally hits. Count me in for the entire experience.