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Having experienced in excess of 200 new releases this year, I'm formally wrapping things up on 2025. My annual roundup is published, and I'm satisfied with the ultimate rankings, despite being aware plenty of stellar titles may have dropped by the wayside. Currently, my only job is to except relax, take a short break, and perhaps take a nice walk in the— well, shoot, discovered one more great game. And just like that, goodbye to my plans!

A Premature Front-Runner Appears

In my more off-hours play, often set aside for a few oddball curiosities, 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 conventional labyrinth explorer into a chance-driven game of major consequence peril and prize. Consider this a preview for the in-the-know: If you relish discovering a game before it's popular, give Sol Cesto a try so you can burn a spot in your gaming budget.

A Calculated Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's different from everything I've previously experienced. The setup is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, descending floor after floor on a quest for the sun, which has vanished from this mythical realm. In practice, this results in some recognizable genre framework. Pick a hero with their own stats and abilities, clear floor after floor of foes, acquire some passive buffs (which are teeth), and vanquish a few stage-ending champions. Straightforward, right!

The Unique Core Mechanic

The way you truly navigate a area, is unique. Every time you begin a fresh level, you see a four-by-four matrix of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To explore a room, you just select on one of the four rows, but the specific tile you select is determined by luck.

You might see a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a 25% chance of landing on a particular space in a row.

Then, you'll probabilities change. The question becomes: Do you press your luck, or do you choose on a alternative option first and attempt some less risky choices early? This is the risk-reward dynamic on display in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing once you get its rhythm.

Influencing Chance

The roguelike twist is that your percentages can be shaped during an attempt by gathering teeth that modify the types of squares you're more attracted to. To illustrate, you may obtain a perk that will lower your chances of encountering a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of getting a treasure chest too.

• Developing a strategy is about manipulating math to the utmost to have a higher chance at getting your desired outcome.
• During one attempt, I put all my stat upgrades toward brute force and chose every teeth I could that would improve my probability of being drawn to monsters aligned with that strength.
• During a separate session, I constructed my hero around reward boxes and combined that with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies whenever I opened a chest.

The customization choices are not endless, but they are sufficient to work with to let you manipulate probabilities the way you want.

A Persistent Risk

Naturally, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There's always the possibility that you have a high probability to hit the square you want but end up landing a monster that would deplete your remaining life. Each click is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you navigate a level and determine if to keep clicking or when to move on to the following level instead of testing fate.

Tools such as enemy-killing bombs help cut down the chance, as do some special skills. A particular character's special power, activated once making four moves, allows players to click on a vertical line rather than a row on a turn. If you play this move wisely, you can reserve that option for a crucial point to circumvent a perilous selection. It's a surprising degree of depth in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is remaining in development, and it has at least one more update to go before the complete edition is unleashed. An additional hero and a new boss are expected to drop sometime in January. The full launch may not be far behind, but the creators haven't set a final date yet.

A Parting Thought

Regardless of when it's fully released, you should consider put Sol Cesto in your sights. For the past week, I've been completely engrossed with it, finding all of hidden nuances and banking my earned gold in each run to unlock a steady stream of permanent unlocks, featuring fresh adventurers and items I can buy during a run. 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 complete journey.