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Following my time with in excess of 200 new releases this year, I'm formally turning the page on 2025. My year-end list is published, and I am at peace with the concluding selections, even knowing a host of excellent games likely fell through the cracks. At this point, it's job is to except relax, unplug a little, and possibly go for a refreshing hike in the— oh no, found another great game. So much for my peaceful respite!

An Early Front-Runner Appears

In my more laid-back sessions, typically earmarked for a handful of quirky titles, I've encountered what could be my earliest beloved game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive roguelike for Windows PC that reimagines a classic labyrinth explorer into a chance-driven game of high stakes risk and reward. Take this as an early adopter's heads-up: If you take pride discovering a game before it hits the mainstream, give Sol Cesto a try so you can punch a hole in your wallet for unique titles.

A Tactical Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's different from everything I've previously experienced. The setup is that you need to explore a dungeon, descending floor after floor to find the sun, which has disappeared from its world. Mechanically, this creates some recognizable genre framework. Pick a hero who has attributes and skills, fight through each level of enemies, acquire some permanent upgrades (represented as teeth), and defeat a few biome bosses. Simple enough!

The Unique Gameplay Loop

How you effectively complete a chamber, though. Each instance you enter a new floor, the game presents a 4x4 grid of boxes. All spaces either contains a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To proceed, you simply click on one of the horizontal lines, but the exact space you end up on is up to chance.

You could encounter a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You initially will have a quarter likelihood of selecting a particular space in a row.

Then, you'll odds shift. The question becomes: Do you take the risk, or do you click on a safer line first and try to make less risky choices early? This is the risk-reward dynamic on display in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing after you develop an understanding of it.

Shaping the Odds

The meta-layer is that your odds can be manipulated over the course of a session by picking up teeth that change what things you're more likely to land on. As an instance, you could acquire a perk that will lower your chances of hitting a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of finding a treasure chest too.

• Developing a strategy is about manipulating math optimally to have a better shot at landing where you want.
• During one attempt, I focused my power boosts toward brute force and picked as many teeth I could that would increase my odds of landing on monsters of that variety.
• On a different attempt, I built my character around loot caches and paired that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters every time I claimed a reward.

The customization choices are limited, but there's enough to engage with to let you manipulate numbers to your preference.

An Ever-Present Risk

Unsurprisingly, at its heart, it's a game of chance. You constantly face the possibility that you have a likely outcome to hit the preferred space but wind up hitting on an enemy that would deplete your last bit of health. Every move is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you navigate a level and determine if to press onward or to proceed to the next floor rather than pushing your luck.

Items like explosive devices aid in reducing the chance, as do some hero powers. A particular character's special power, charged after clearing four squares, enables you to select a vertical line in place of a horizontal line on a turn. By employing this strategically, you can reserve that option for an optimal time to circumvent a perilous selection. You'll find an astonishing degree of depth in the basic action of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is still in its preview phase, and it has at least one more update to go until the final game is released. Another playable adventurer and a additional end-level foe are scheduled to arrive by the end of January. The official version likely won't be much later, but the studio haven't set a final date yet.

A Final Recommendation

Regardless of when it's fully released, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. For the past week, I've been positively obsessed with it, uncovering each of little secrets and banking my earned gold every session to access a constant flow of meta progression rewards, featuring fresh adventurers and items purchasable mid-attempt. I still haven't reached the bottom, and I get the feeling I'll still be pursuing that objective when 1.0 finally hits. Sign me up for the long haul.