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Having experienced more than 200 recent games this year, I am officially turning the page on 2025. My best-of compilation is out in the world, and I am at peace with the concluding selections, even knowing a host of excellent games may have dropped through the cracks. Now, there's plan is to but sit back, take a short break, and possibly go for a refreshing hike in the— oh no, stumbled upon a great game. So much for my intentions!

A Premature Front-Runner Appears

With my laid-back sessions, typically earmarked for a selection of unusual games, I've come across what might become my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that deconstructs a traditional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of major consequence danger and payoff. View this a hipster's insider tip: If you enjoy being aware of a game before it hits the mainstream, sample Sol Cesto so you can punch a hole in your gaming budget.

A Tactical Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's a departure from all I've ever played. The concept is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper in search of the sun, which has disappeared from the fantasy world. Mechanically, this creates some standard crawl progression. Select a character who has parameters and powers, defeat enemies on every stage of foes, acquire some passive buffs (in the form of teeth), and vanquish a few biome bosses. Simple enough!

The Novel Gameplay Loop

How you effectively complete a chamber, is unique. Every time you start another stage, you see a sixteen-square board of boxes. All spaces either contains a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To make a move, you just select on one of the four rows, but the exact space you select is determined by luck.

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 landing on a specific tile in a row.

After that, the probabilities change. So do you go for it, or do you click on a alternative option first and try to make more cautious selections early? That's the push-your-luck gameplay in action in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing after you develop a feel for it.

Shaping the Odds

The roguelike twist is that your probabilities can be influenced during an attempt by gathering teeth that change what things you're more likely to land on. For example, you may obtain a perk that will decrease your odds of encountering a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of getting a reward too.

• Crafting a loadout is about tweaking the numbers to the utmost to have a improved likelihood at selecting the optimal square.
• During one attempt, I invested my stat upgrades toward melee prowess and chose every teeth I could that would boost my chances of landing on monsters aligned with that strength.
• During a separate session, I developed my adventurer around treasure chests and combined that with a perk that would debuff nearby foes each time I opened a chest.

The strategic possibilities are limited, but they are sufficient to engage with to enable you to influence the odds according to your strategy.

A Constant Tension

Naturally, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There's always the chance that you have a high probability to land on the square you want but end up landing on an enemy that would eliminate your remaining life. All selections is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you work through a stage and determine if to keep clicking or to proceed to the following level as opposed to pushing your luck.

Items like explosive devices aid in reducing the chance, just like some hero powers. One hero's unique ability, charged after selecting four tiles, allows players to click on a vertical line in place of a row on a turn. By employing your cards right, you can hold that ability for a crucial point to sidestep a dangerous choice. It's a surprising amount of nuance in the basic action of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is still in early access, and it has at least one more update scheduled before the complete edition is launched. A new character and a fresh guardian are scheduled to arrive before the conclusion of January. The full launch probably isn't much later, but the creators haven't set a final date yet.

A Parting Recommendation

Regardless of when it's fully released, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been positively obsessed with it, finding all of small details and saving my accumulated currency every session to access a constant flow of permanent unlocks, including new characters and items I can buy while playing. To this day, I have not reached the bottom, and I get the feeling I'll continue attempting that goal when the full version launches. I'm committed for the entire experience.