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Following my time with in excess of 200 fresh titles this year, It's time to closing the book on 2025. My best-of compilation is out in the world, and I am at peace with the final results, despite being aware numerous stellar titles probably slipped through the cracks. At this point, it's plan is to but sit back, unplug a little, and perhaps take a pleasant stroll in the— oh no, found another brilliant title. So much for my plans!

A Premature Front-Runner Appears

With my off-hours play, often set aside for a few oddball curiosities, I've discovered potentially my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar roguelike for Windows PC that reimagines a traditional labyrinth explorer into a chance-driven game of significant risk risk and reward. Consider this a preview for the in-the-know: If you take pride being aware of a game before it hits the mainstream, give Sol Cesto a try so you can make a dent in your indie credit card.

A Strategic Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's different from everything I'm familiar with. The concept is that you need to explore a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper to find the sun, which has disappeared from its world. In practice, that makes for some familiar roguelike structure. Select a character who has attributes and skills, defeat enemies on every stage of enemies, pick up some passive buffs (in the form of teeth), and defeat a few area guardians. Simple enough!

The Distinctive Core Mechanic

The method by which you effectively complete a area, however. Every time you start another stage, you're shown a four-by-four matrix of boxes. All spaces features a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To explore a room, you simply click on one of the four rows, but which square you select is determined by luck.

You might see a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You begin with a one-in-four probability of selecting a specific tile in a row.

After that, the probabilities change. So do you take the risk, or do you click on a safer line first and try to make more cautious selections early? Herein lies the tension between chance and safety at play in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating when you acquire a feel for it.

Manipulating Probability

The roguelike twist is that your odds can be manipulated over the course of a session by picking up teeth that change what things you're more attracted to. To illustrate, you may obtain a perk that will reduce the probability of hitting a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of getting a treasure chest too.

• Creating a build is about manipulating math optimally to have a higher chance at landing where you want.
• On a particular session, I focused my stat upgrades toward physical attack/defense and selected all the teeth possible that would improve my probability of attracting me toward monsters of that variety.
• In another run, I developed my adventurer around reward boxes and combined that with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies each time I secured loot.

The customization choices are not endless, but they are sufficient to work with to enable you to influence numbers according to your strategy.

A Constant Risk

Naturally, it's still a game of chance. You constantly face the possibility that you have an 80% chance to select the square you want but ultimately choose a foe that would deplete your final hit point. Every move is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you navigate a level and determine if to keep clicking or to proceed to the next floor instead of testing fate.

Tools such as enemy-killing bombs aid in reducing the chance, similar to some hero powers. An adventurer's special power, charged after making four moves, enables you to select a vertical column instead of a row during that action. Should you use this strategically, you can save that move for a crucial point to circumvent a perilous selection. You'll find an astonishing degree of depth in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is still in its preview phase, and it has another update to go until the full version is launched. Another playable adventurer and a fresh guardian are expected to drop sometime in January. The full launch may not be much later, but the game's developers haven't committed to a concrete launch day yet.

A Parting Thought

Whenever the complete game arrives, you should consider put Sol Cesto in your sights. For the past week, I've been completely engrossed with it, uncovering each of hidden nuances and banking my earned gold in each run to reveal a continuous trickle of permanent unlocks, including additional heroes and items purchasable mid-attempt. As of now, I am yet to found the deepest level, and I suspect I'll continue attempting that goal when the full version launches. Count me in for the long haul.