🔗 Share this article

After playing in excess of 200 new releases this year, I am officially closing the book on 2025. My annual roundup is out in the world, and I'm satisfied with the ultimate rankings, accepting that a host of excellent games may have dropped under the radar. Currently, my only plan is to but sit back, unplug a little, and maybe enjoy a refreshing hike in the— well, shoot, discovered one more brilliant title. There go my peaceful respite!

An Early Front-Runner Appears

With my casual gaming time, usually reserved for a few oddball curiosities, I've encountered potentially my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a traditional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of major consequence peril and prize. Consider this an early adopter's heads-up: If you take pride being aware of a game before it hits the mainstream, test out Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your gaming budget.

A Calculated Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's a departure from all I'm familiar with. The premise is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper on a quest for the sun, which has disappeared from this mythical realm. In practice, that makes for some recognizable genre framework. Select a character possessing unique attributes and skills, fight through each level of foes, pick up some permanent upgrades (which are teeth), and vanquish a few stage-ending champions. Straightforward, right!

The Unique Central System

How you effectively complete a area, though. Each instance you begin a fresh level, you see a 4x4 grid of boxes. Each square 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 horizontal lines, but the specific tile you land in is a matter of probability.

You might see a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You start with a quarter likelihood of hitting a particular space in a row.

Subsequently, your chances are recalculated. So do you go for it, or do you click on a alternative option first and aim for safer moves early? Herein lies the risk-reward dynamic on display in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing after you develop an understanding of it.

Manipulating Probability

The meta-layer is that your probabilities can be influenced through a run by collecting teeth that modify the types of squares you're more likely to land on. As an instance, you may obtain a perk that will decrease your odds of hitting a trap, but will also decrease the odds of finding a reward too.

• Developing a strategy is about tweaking the numbers to the utmost to have a improved likelihood at getting your desired outcome.
• In one run, I focused my stat upgrades toward brute force and picked as many teeth possible that would boost my chances of attracting me toward monsters aligned with that strength.
• On a different attempt, I developed my adventurer around loot caches and paired that with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies each time I opened a chest.

The build options are limited, but they are sufficient to work with to let you manipulate the odds according to your strategy.

A Persistent Gamble

Unsurprisingly, it's still a game of chance. There's always the risk that you have a high probability to select the desired tile but end up landing a foe that would take out your last bit of health. Each click is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you work through a stage and decide when to keep clicking or to advance to the following level as opposed to pushing your luck.

Consumables including destructive ordnance aid in reducing the chance, similar to some character abilities. An adventurer's signature move, charged after selecting four tiles, enables you to click on a column rather than a horizontal row for that move. Should you use this strategically, you can save that move for an optimal time to circumvent a perilous selection. There's a shocking level of strategy in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is remaining in development, and it has another update scheduled until the complete edition is released. A new character and a additional end-level foe are planned for release sometime in January. The full launch probably isn't far behind, but the game's developers haven't announced a specific release window yet.

A Final Thought

No matter when it's fully released, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your radar. I've been completely engrossed with it, discovering its little secrets and banking my earned gold per attempt to reveal a continuous trickle of permanent unlocks, such as new characters and items available for acquisition mid-attempt. As of now, I am yet to completed the dungeon, and I get the feeling I will remain attempting that goal when the full version launches. I'm committed for the long haul.