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Having experienced in excess of 200 new releases this year, I am officially wrapping things up on 2025. My annual roundup is published, and I'm satisfied with the concluding selections, accepting that plenty of fantastic releases likely fell through the cracks. Currently, my only job is to except relax, take a short break, and maybe enjoy a pleasant stroll in the— ah crap, discovered one more brilliant title. And just like that, goodbye to my plans!

An Early Favorite Surfaces

In my more off-hours play, often set aside for a selection of unusual games, I've encountered potentially my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive roguelike for Windows PC that reimagines a traditional labyrinth explorer into a chance-driven game of major consequence risk and reward. Consider this a preview for the in-the-know: If you enjoy discovering a game before it's popular, sample Sol Cesto so you can punch a hole in your wallet for unique titles.

A Tactical Genre Subversion

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's different from everything I'm familiar with. The concept is that you must venture into a dungeon, descending floor after floor on a quest for the sun, which has disappeared from its world. In practice, that makes for some standard crawl progression. Select a character possessing unique parameters and powers, defeat enemies on every stage of monsters, acquire some stat improvements (which are teeth), and vanquish a few area guardians. Simple enough!

The Unique Gameplay Loop

How you truly navigate a dungeon room, however. Whenever you begin a fresh level, the game presents a 4x4 grid of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To proceed, you simply click on one of the four rows, but which square you land in is determined by luck.

You might see a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a one-in-four probability of landing on a specific tile in a row.

After that, the odds shift. So do you take the risk, or do you click on a safer line first and attempt some less risky choices early? This is the risk-reward dynamic on display in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing after you develop a feel for it.

Manipulating Probability

The meta-layer is that your percentages can be shaped over the course of a session by gathering teeth that change what things you're more attracted to. To illustrate, you may obtain a perk that will decrease your odds of hitting a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of getting a reward too.

• Developing a strategy is about tweaking the numbers as best you can to have a improved likelihood at landing where you want.
• In one run, I focused my power boosts toward melee prowess and picked as many teeth possible that would increase my odds of attracting me toward monsters aligned with that strength.
• In another run, I constructed my hero around loot caches and paired that with a perk that would debuff nearby foes each time I secured loot.

The customization choices are somewhat constrained, but it provides ample to experiment with to enable you to influence probabilities to your preference.

A Persistent Tension

Unsurprisingly, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There remains the chance that you have an 80% chance to select the square you want but ultimately choose a monster that would take out your last bit of health. All selections is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you clear a floor out and choose whether to press onward or when to move on to the following level as opposed to risking it all.

Items like destructive ordnance aid in reducing the chance, as do some special skills. An adventurer's signature move, activated once selecting four tiles, allows players to choose a vertical line rather than a horizontal line on a turn. If you play this strategically, you can reserve that option for an optimal time to sidestep a dangerous choice. It's a surprising level of strategy in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is still in development, and it has another update scheduled before the full version is launched. A new character and a new boss are planned for release by the end of January. The official version likely won't be long after, but the studio haven't announced a specific release window yet.

A Concluding Endorsement

Whenever it's fully released, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I've been completely engrossed with it, finding all of small details and storing my run rewards in each run to access a constant flow of permanent unlocks, featuring additional heroes and items available for acquisition during a run. As of now, I am yet to found the deepest level, and I get the feeling I'll still be pursuing that objective when the full version launches. I'm committed for the entire experience.