🔗 Share this article

After playing well over 200 new releases this year, I am officially closing the book on 2025. My annual roundup is live, and I feel content with the ultimate rankings, despite being aware a host of stellar titles probably slipped by the wayside. Currently, my only nothing for me to do other than unwind, disconnect briefly, and perhaps take a pleasant stroll in the— ah crap, found another great game. And just like that, goodbye to my peaceful respite!

A Premature Contender Emerges

In my more casual gaming time, usually reserved for a few oddball curiosities, I've come across what might become my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual roguelike for Windows PC that breaks down a classic labyrinth explorer into a probability-fueled game of high stakes risk and reward. View this a hipster's insider tip: If you enjoy in knowing about a game before it's cool, sample Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your gaming budget.

A Tactical Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's a departure from all I've ever played. The premise is that you need to explore a dungeon, descending floor after floor on a quest for the sun, which has disappeared from its world. In practice, this creates some standard crawl progression. Choose an adventurer with their own attributes and skills, fight through each level of enemies, acquire some passive buffs (which are teeth), and defeat a few biome bosses. Simple enough!

The Unique Gameplay Loop

The method by which you truly navigate a dungeon room, is unique. Each instance you start another stage, the game presents a four-by-four matrix of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To explore a room, you simply click on one of the horizontal lines, but the exact space you select is a matter of probability.

You may face a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You start with a 25% chance of landing on any given square in a row.

Then, you'll probabilities change. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you opt on a different row first and attempt some less risky choices early? That's the tension between chance and safety at play in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing when you acquire an understanding of it.

Influencing Chance

The roguelike twist is that your percentages can be shaped during an attempt by collecting teeth that change what things you're more likely to land on. For example, you could acquire a perk that will lower your chances of landing on a trap, but will also decrease the odds of landing on a reward too.

• Creating a build is about manipulating math to the utmost to have a higher chance at getting your desired outcome.
• In one run, I focused my power boosts toward physical attack/defense and picked as many teeth I could that would increase my odds of landing on monsters with that damage type.
• In another run, I built my character around reward boxes and combined that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters every time I secured loot.

The customization choices are somewhat constrained, but they are sufficient to engage with to allow you to tweak probabilities according to your strategy.

A Constant Risk

Unsurprisingly, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There remains the chance that you have a high probability to land on the desired tile but ultimately choose a foe that would take out your last bit of health. Every move is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you navigate a level and determine if to press onward or to proceed to the following level rather than testing fate.

Items like enemy-killing bombs assist in minimizing the chance, just like some character abilities. A particular character's special power, powered up by selecting four tiles, lets gamers to click on a vertical column instead of a horizontal row on a turn. Should you use this strategically, you can hold that ability for the right moment to sidestep a dangerous choice. There's a shocking amount of nuance in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is remaining in early access, and it has another update scheduled until the final game is released. An additional hero and a new boss are scheduled to arrive sometime in January. The full launch probably isn't long after, but the creators haven't announced a final date yet.

A Final Endorsement

Whenever the complete game arrives, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been thoroughly captivated with it, uncovering each of small details and saving my accumulated currency every session to unlock a steady stream of meta progression rewards, featuring additional heroes and items I can buy during a run. I still haven't reached the bottom, and I get the feeling I will remain attempting that goal when the official release drops. I'm committed for the entire experience.