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Having experienced well over 200 recent games this year, It's time to wrapping things up on 2025. My best-of compilation is out in the world, and I am at peace with the concluding selections, accepting that plenty of excellent games probably slipped through the cracks. Currently, my only job is to other than unwind, take a short break, and perhaps take a nice walk in the— oh no, stumbled upon a brilliant title. So much for my intentions!

A Surprising Contender Emerges

In my more off-hours play, usually reserved for a selection of unusual games, I've discovered what could be my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a classic dungeon crawler into a probability-fueled game of high stakes danger and payoff. Take this as a preview for the in-the-know: If you relish discovering a game before it's cool, test out Sol Cesto so you can punch a hole in your wallet for unique titles.

A Tactical Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's a departure from all I've ever played. The concept is that you must venture into a dungeon, descending floor after floor to find the sun, which has vanished from this mythical realm. Mechanically, that makes for some recognizable genre framework. Pick a hero with their own attributes and skills, fight through each level of enemies, pick up some permanent upgrades (in the form of teeth), and defeat a few stage-ending champions. Easy to grasp!

The Distinctive Core Mechanic

The method by which you truly navigate a area, is unique. Each instance you start another stage, you see a sixteen-square board of boxes. Every tile features a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To make a move, you just select on one of the four rows, but the exact space you end up on is determined by luck.

You could encounter a row with a pair of enemies, 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 odds shift. The question becomes: Do you take the risk, or do you opt on a safer line first and try to make more cautious selections early? This is the tension between chance and safety on display in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing when you acquire an understanding of it.

Manipulating Probability

The roguelike twist is that your percentages can be shaped over the course of a session by gathering teeth that change what things you're drawn toward. As an instance, you might get a perk that will decrease your odds of encountering a trap, but will also decrease the odds of getting a treasure chest too.

• Developing a strategy is about influencing the statistics optimally to have a better shot at landing where you want.
• During one attempt, I put all my stat upgrades toward melee prowess and chose every teeth possible that would improve my probability of landing on monsters with that damage type.
• During a separate session, I developed my adventurer around loot caches and paired that with a perk that would debuff nearby foes each time I secured loot.

The strategic possibilities are somewhat constrained, but they are sufficient to work with to enable you to influence the odds to your preference.

An Ever-Present Risk

Of course, it's still a game of chance. There remains the risk that you have a likely outcome to hit the desired tile but end up landing a foe that would take out your final hit point. Every move is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you work through a stage and choose whether to keep clicking or to advance to the next floor as opposed to pushing your luck.

Tools such as explosive devices aid in reducing the chance, just like some character abilities. A particular character's unique ability, charged after clearing four squares, allows players to select a vertical column rather than a row on a turn. If you play this move wisely, you can hold that ability for the right moment to circumvent a perilous selection. You'll find an astonishing degree of depth in the simple act of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is remaining in early access, and it has another update to go before the final game is launched. Another playable adventurer and a new boss are scheduled to arrive by the end of January. The official version likely won't be far behind, but the creators haven't set a specific release window yet.

A Parting Endorsement

No matter when it's fully released, you should consider put Sol Cesto in your sights. I've been positively obsessed with it, discovering its little secrets and storing my run rewards every session to reveal a continuous trickle of persistent upgrades, featuring fresh adventurers and items available for acquisition during a run. As of now, I am yet to completed the dungeon, and I suspect I will remain working on that task when the full version launches. I'm committed for the long haul.