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After playing well over 200 recent games this year, It's time to wrapping things up on 2025. My year-end list is out in the world, and I am at peace with the final results, accepting that numerous excellent games probably slipped by the wayside. At this point, it's job is to except relax, disconnect briefly, and possibly go for a nice walk in the— ah crap, stumbled upon a brilliant title. And just like that, goodbye to my intentions!

A Surprising Contender Emerges

During my off-hours play, often set aside for a few oddball curiosities, I've discovered what could be my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar roguelike for Windows PC that breaks down a traditional dungeon crawler into a chance-driven game of major consequence risk and reward. Consider this an early adopter's heads-up: If you take pride discovering a game before it hits the mainstream, test out Sol Cesto so you can punch a hole in your wallet for unique titles.

A Strategic Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's different from everything I've ever played. The concept is that you need to explore a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper in search of the sun, which has vanished from its world. In practice, that makes for some standard crawl progression. Select a character possessing unique parameters and powers, defeat enemies on every stage of monsters, pick up some stat improvements (represented as teeth), and vanquish a few stage-ending champions. Straightforward, right!

The Novel Core Mechanic

How you effectively complete a dungeon room, however. Each instance you begin a fresh level, the game presents a sixteen-square board of boxes. Every tile features a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To make a move, you just select on one of the four rows, but which square you select is up to chance.

You could encounter a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You initially will have a one-in-four probability of landing on a particular space in a row.

After that, the odds shift. So do you press your luck, or do you opt on a different row first and try to make safer moves early? This is the tension between chance and safety at play in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing once you get a feel for it.

Influencing Chance

The roguelike twist is that your probabilities can be influenced through a run by picking up teeth that change what things you're more likely to land on. To illustrate, you could acquire a perk that will lower your chances of hitting a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of landing on a treasure chest too.

• Developing a strategy is about influencing the statistics to the utmost to have a better shot at getting your desired outcome.
• During one attempt, I invested my power boosts toward melee prowess and chose every teeth possible that would increase my odds of being drawn to monsters aligned with that strength.
• In another run, I built my character around loot caches and coupled it with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters every time I claimed a reward.

The build options are not endless, but there's enough to engage with to allow you to tweak numbers according to your strategy.

An Ever-Present Tension

Of course, it remains a game of chance. There's always the possibility that you have a high probability to select the desired tile but ultimately choose on an enemy that would deplete your last bit of health. Every move is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you clear a floor out and determine if to keep clicking or to proceed to the following level instead of testing fate.

Consumables including enemy-killing bombs help cut down the chance, similar to some hero powers. A particular character's special power, powered up by clearing four squares, enables you to select a column rather than a horizontal row during that action. Should you use this strategically, you can save that move for the right moment to sidestep a dangerous choice. You'll find an astonishing level of strategy in the simple act of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is still in early access, and it has a final update to go until the complete edition is launched. Another playable adventurer and a new boss are expected to drop by the end of January. The 1.0 release may not be long after, but the studio haven't announced a concrete launch day yet.

A Parting Thought

Whenever it's fully released, you ought to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been completely engrossed with it, discovering its hidden nuances and saving my accumulated currency per attempt to reveal a continuous trickle of persistent upgrades, featuring fresh adventurers and items purchasable during a run. As of now, I am yet to reached the bottom, and I have a sense I will remain pursuing that objective when the full version launches. Count me in for the entire experience.