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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 out in the world, and I'm satisfied with the final results, despite being aware a host of stellar titles likely fell under the radar. Currently, my only nothing for me to do but sit back, unplug a little, and possibly go for a nice walk in the— oh no, discovered one more brilliant title. So much for my plans!

A Surprising Favorite Surfaces

With my off-hours play, often set aside for a handful of quirky titles, I've come across potentially my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a traditional labyrinth explorer into a chance-driven game of major consequence risk and reward. Consider this an early adopter's heads-up: If you enjoy being aware of a game before it's cool, give Sol Cesto a try so you can burn a spot in your wallet for unique titles.

A Tactical Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's unlike anything I'm familiar with. The premise is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper in search of the sun, which has gone missing from the fantasy world. Mechanically, that makes for some familiar roguelike structure. Choose an adventurer possessing unique stats and abilities, defeat enemies on every stage of enemies, pick up some permanent upgrades (which are teeth), and defeat a few biome bosses. Easy to grasp!

The Novel Core Mechanic

The method by which you truly navigate a dungeon room, is unique. Each instance you enter a new floor, you're shown a 4x4 grid of boxes. All spaces holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To explore a room, you choose on one of the four rows, but the exact space you end up on is up to chance.

You might see a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You start with a one-in-four probability of selecting a specific tile in a row.

Subsequently, your probabilities change. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you opt on a safer line first and attempt some less risky choices early? That's the risk-reward dynamic on display in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing once you get an understanding of it.

Influencing Chance

The meta-layer is that your odds can be manipulated through a run by gathering teeth that modify the types of squares you're more likely to land on. To illustrate, 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.

• Crafting a loadout is about manipulating math optimally to have a better shot at selecting the optimal square.
• During one attempt, I put all my attribute improvements toward physical attack/defense and picked as many teeth possible that would boost my chances of attracting me toward monsters aligned with that strength.
• In another run, I built my character around treasure chests and combined that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters every time I claimed a reward.

The customization choices are somewhat constrained, but there's enough to engage with to allow you to tweak probabilities the way you want.

An Ever-Present Tension

Unsurprisingly, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There's always the chance that you have an 80% chance to land on the desired tile but ultimately choose a foe that would eliminate your remaining life. Every move is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you navigate a level and choose whether to press onward or when to move on to the next floor as opposed to risking it all.

Tools such as enemy-killing bombs help cut down the chance, similar to some character abilities. An adventurer's signature move, powered up by clearing four squares, lets gamers to choose a vertical line in place of a horizontal line during that action. If you play your cards right, you can save that move for the right moment to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising amount of nuance in the basic action of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is remaining in its preview phase, and it has at least one more update to go until the final game is launched. An additional hero and a fresh guardian are planned for release before the conclusion of January. The official version may not be far behind, but the creators haven't set a concrete launch day yet.

A Concluding Thought

Regardless of when it's fully released, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I've been thoroughly captivated with it, finding all of small details and banking my earned gold in each run to reveal a continuous trickle of meta progression rewards, such as fresh adventurers and items I can buy mid-attempt. I still haven't completed the dungeon, and I suspect I will remain pursuing that objective when the official release drops. Count me in for the entire experience.