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After playing more than 200 new releases this year, I'm formally closing the book on 2025. My annual roundup is out in the world, and I feel content with the ultimate rankings, accepting that plenty of excellent games probably slipped under the radar. Currently, my only job is to except relax, disconnect briefly, and possibly go for a refreshing hike in the— oh no, discovered one more amazing experience. And just like that, goodbye to my intentions!

An Early Favorite Surfaces

During my casual gaming time, often set aside for a selection of unusual games, I've come across potentially my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar roguelike for Windows PC that deconstructs a conventional labyrinth explorer into a luck-based game of significant risk danger and payoff. View this a hipster's insider tip: If you take pride in knowing about a game before it hits the mainstream, sample Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your gaming budget.

A Calculated Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's a departure from all I've previously experienced. The setup is that you need to explore a dungeon, going down level by level to find the sun, which has disappeared from its world. Mechanically, this results in some recognizable genre framework. Select a character who has attributes and skills, fight through each level of foes, collect some stat improvements (represented as teeth), and overcome a few stage-ending champions. Easy to grasp!

The Distinctive Central System

The method by which you truly navigate a dungeon room, is unique. Every time you begin a fresh level, you see a 4x4 grid of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To proceed, you just select on one of the horizontal lines, but the specific tile you select is determined by luck.

You might see a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You start with a one-in-four probability of selecting any given square in a row.

After that, the probabilities change. The question becomes: Do you take the risk, or do you click on a different row first and aim for more cautious selections early? Herein lies the tension between chance and safety at play in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating after you develop its rhythm.

Influencing Chance

The procedural hook is that your probabilities can be influenced during an attempt by collecting teeth that alter which objects you're drawn toward. To illustrate, you could acquire a perk that will decrease your odds of encountering a trap, but will also decrease the odds of landing on a treasure chest too.

• Creating a build is about manipulating math to the utmost to have a better shot at getting your desired outcome.
• On a particular session, I put all my power boosts toward brute force and selected all the teeth I could that would increase my odds 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 every time I claimed a reward.

The customization choices are limited, but it provides ample to engage with to enable you to influence probabilities to your preference.

An Ever-Present Risk

Unsurprisingly, it's still a game of chance. There's always the possibility that you have a high probability to select the desired tile but wind up hitting a monster that would eliminate your final hit point. Each click is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you work through a stage and determine if to continue selecting or to proceed to the subsequent stage instead of testing fate.

Items like destructive ordnance assist in minimizing the chance, similar to some special skills. An adventurer's signature move, activated once making four moves, allows players to click on a vertical line in place of a row on a turn. If you play your cards right, you can save that move for an optimal time to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising level of strategy in the simple act of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is remaining in its preview phase, and it has another update scheduled until the full version is released. Another playable adventurer and a additional end-level foe are scheduled to arrive sometime in January. The official version likely won't be much later, but the studio haven't announced a final date yet.

A Concluding Thought

No matter when it's fully released, you ought to put Sol Cesto in your sights. I have been completely engrossed with it, uncovering each of little secrets and saving my accumulated currency every session to unlock a steady stream of meta progression rewards, such as fresh adventurers and items available for acquisition while playing. As of now, I am yet to completed the dungeon, and I get the feeling I will remain working on that task when the official release drops. Count me in for the complete journey.