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After playing more than 200 new releases this year, It's time to closing the book on 2025. My best-of compilation is out in the world, and I feel content with the final results, despite being aware numerous stellar titles likely fell by the wayside. Currently, my only job is to other than unwind, disconnect briefly, and maybe enjoy a nice walk in the— ah crap, found another great game. There go my plans!

A Premature Contender Emerges

With my casual gaming time, typically earmarked for a handful of quirky titles, I've discovered potentially my earliest beloved game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that deconstructs a conventional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of major consequence danger and payoff. Take this as an early adopter's heads-up: If you relish being aware of a game before it's popular, test out Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your gaming budget.

A Strategic Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's unlike anything I've previously experienced. The setup is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, going down level by level to find the sun, which has vanished from this mythical realm. Mechanically, this results in some standard crawl progression. Select a character possessing unique attributes and skills, fight through each level of monsters, acquire some stat improvements (which are teeth), and overcome a few biome bosses. Straightforward, right!

The Distinctive Core Mechanic

The way you truly navigate a area, however. Whenever you begin a fresh level, you're shown a four-by-four matrix of boxes. All spaces features a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To proceed, you just select on one of the horizontal lines, but which square you land in is determined by luck.

You might see a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a treasure chest 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 press your luck, or do you choose on a safer line first and try to make safer moves early? Herein lies the risk-reward dynamic on display in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating when you acquire an understanding of it.

Shaping the Odds

The procedural hook is that your odds can be manipulated over the course of a session by collecting teeth that change what things you're drawn toward. To illustrate, you may obtain a perk that will lower your chances of landing on a trap, but will also decrease the odds of getting a reward too.

• Creating a build is about manipulating math as best you can to have a better shot at getting your desired outcome.
• During one attempt, I put all my power boosts toward physical attack/defense and selected all the teeth I could that would increase my odds of landing on monsters with that damage type.
• On a different attempt, I constructed my hero around loot caches and coupled it with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters whenever I opened a chest.

The build options are somewhat constrained, but there's enough to work with to let you manipulate probabilities the way you want.

A Constant Risk

Of course, it remains a game of chance. You constantly face the possibility that you have a likely outcome to land on the desired tile but ultimately choose a monster that would eliminate your final hit point. Each click is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you navigate a level and determine if to press onward or to advance to the following level rather than pushing your luck.

Tools such as enemy-killing bombs assist in minimizing the chance, similar to some hero powers. A particular character's signature move, activated once selecting four tiles, allows players to select a column instead of a horizontal line during that action. Should you use this strategically, you can reserve that option for an optimal time to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising amount of nuance in the simple act of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is still in its preview phase, and it has a final update to go until the complete edition is launched. A new character and a fresh guardian are scheduled to arrive sometime in January. The official version likely won't be far behind, but the creators haven't committed to a concrete launch day yet.

A Concluding Endorsement

Whenever its 1.0 launch occurs, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your radar. I have been completely engrossed with it, uncovering each of little secrets and saving my accumulated currency in each run to reveal a continuous trickle of persistent upgrades, including new characters and items available for acquisition while playing. To this day, I have not found the deepest level, and I have a sense I'll continue pursuing that objective when 1.0 finally hits. Sign me up for the entire experience.