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Having experienced more than 200 recent games this year, It's time to turning the page on 2025. My annual roundup is published, and I feel content with the ultimate rankings, despite being aware numerous stellar titles probably slipped by the wayside. At this point, it's job is to except relax, unplug a little, and maybe enjoy a nice walk in the— ah crap, discovered one more great game. There go my intentions!

A Surprising Front-Runner Appears

In my more laid-back sessions, usually reserved for a few oddball curiosities, I've come across potentially my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar roguelike 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 enjoy in knowing about a game before it hits the mainstream, test out Sol Cesto so you can burn a spot in your indie credit card.

A Strategic 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 disappeared from its world. In practice, that makes for some familiar roguelike structure. Choose an adventurer with their own attributes and skills, defeat enemies on every stage of monsters, acquire some passive buffs (represented as teeth), and vanquish a few area guardians. Straightforward, right!

The Unique Core Mechanic

The way you truly navigate a area, is unique. Every time you begin a fresh level, you're shown a 4x4 grid of boxes. Every tile holds a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To make a move, you choose on one of the four rows, but the specific tile you end up on is up to chance.

You could encounter a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You initially will have a 25% chance of hitting a particular space in a row.

After that, the odds shift. So do you take the risk, or do you click on a different row first and try to make safer moves early? That's the risk-reward dynamic at play in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing once you get a feel for it.

Influencing Chance

The meta-layer is that your probabilities can be influenced over the course of a session by collecting teeth that change what things you're more likely to land on. For example, you might get a perk that will decrease your odds of encountering a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of landing on a treasure chest too.

• Developing a strategy is about influencing the statistics to the utmost to have a higher chance at selecting the optimal square.
• On a particular session, I invested my stat upgrades toward physical attack/defense and picked as many teeth I could that would increase my odds of landing on monsters of that variety.
• During a separate session, I developed my adventurer around loot caches and coupled it with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters whenever I claimed a reward.

The build options are limited, but there's enough to engage with to enable you to influence probabilities according to your strategy.

A Constant Risk

Of course, it's still a game of chance. You constantly face the possibility that you have a high probability to land on the preferred space but end up landing on an enemy that would eliminate your final hit point. Every move is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you navigate a level and choose whether to keep clicking or to proceed to the following level rather than pushing your luck.

Tools such as destructive ordnance aid in reducing the chance, just like some special skills. One hero's unique ability, charged after selecting four tiles, lets gamers to choose a vertical line rather than a horizontal line for that move. Should you use this move wisely, you can reserve that option for an optimal time to sidestep a dangerous choice. It's a surprising amount of nuance in the basic action of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is remaining in early access, and it has at least one more update to go before the final game is launched. Another playable adventurer and a additional end-level foe are planned for release by the end of January. The full launch probably isn't much later, but the studio haven't announced a final date yet.

A Final Endorsement

Regardless of when the complete game arrives, you should consider put Sol Cesto in your sights. I have been completely engrossed with it, finding all of small details and banking my earned gold every session to unlock a steady stream of meta progression rewards, featuring fresh adventurers and items available for acquisition during a run. To this day, I have not reached the bottom, and I suspect I will remain pursuing that objective when the full version launches. Sign me up for the long haul.