🔗 Share this article

Having experienced in excess of 200 new releases this year, I am officially turning the page on 2025. My best-of compilation is out in the world, and I am at peace with the ultimate rankings, even knowing numerous excellent games likely fell by the wayside. Now, there's job is to except relax, unplug a little, and perhaps take a pleasant stroll in the— well, shoot, discovered one more great game. There go my intentions!

A Surprising Contender Emerges

In my more laid-back sessions, usually reserved for a handful of quirky titles, I've come across potentially my earliest beloved 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 an early adopter's heads-up: If you relish being aware of a game before it hits the mainstream, test out Sol Cesto so you can punch a hole in your indie credit card.

A Calculated Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's a departure from all I've ever played. The premise is that you must venture into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper in search of the sun, which has disappeared from this mythical realm. When you play, this results in some standard crawl progression. Select a character who has stats and abilities, fight through each level of foes, pick up some passive buffs (in the form of teeth), and defeat a few stage-ending champions. Straightforward, right!

The Distinctive Central System

How you truly navigate a dungeon room, is unique. Every time you enter a new floor, you're shown a sixteen-square board of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To make a move, you just select on one of the horizontal lines, but which square you select is up to chance.

You may face a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You start with a 25% chance of selecting a specific tile in a row.

After that, the chances are recalculated. So do you go for it, or do you opt on a safer line first and try to make more cautious selections early? Herein lies the risk-reward dynamic in action in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing after you develop an understanding of it.

Shaping the Odds

The meta-layer is that your percentages can be shaped during an attempt by picking up teeth that change what things you're more likely to land on. As an instance, you could acquire a perk that will reduce the probability of hitting a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of getting a reward too.

• Developing a strategy is about tweaking the numbers as best you can to have a better shot at getting your desired outcome.
• On a particular session, I put all my stat upgrades toward brute force and selected all the teeth I could that would increase my odds of landing on monsters aligned with that strength.
• During a separate session, I built my character around treasure chests and coupled it with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies every time I claimed a reward.

The strategic possibilities are not endless, but there's enough to experiment with to allow you to tweak probabilities according to your strategy.

A Constant Risk

Unsurprisingly, it remains a game of chance. There remains the chance that you have a likely outcome to select the square you want but wind up hitting a monster that would take out your last bit of health. Each click is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you clear a floor out and determine if to keep clicking or to proceed to the next floor rather than risking it all.

Consumables including explosive devices aid in reducing the chance, similar to some hero powers. An adventurer's signature move, charged after clearing four squares, allows players to select a vertical column rather than a row during that action. If you play this move wisely, you can save that move for the right moment to sidestep a dangerous choice. There's a shocking level of strategy in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is currently in its preview phase, and it has at least one more update to go before the final game is unleashed. Another playable adventurer and a fresh guardian are expected to drop by the end of January. The 1.0 release probably isn't much later, but the creators haven't set a final date yet.

A Parting Endorsement

No matter when its 1.0 launch occurs, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your radar. I have been thoroughly captivated with it, finding all of little secrets and saving my accumulated currency in each run to access a constant flow of persistent upgrades, including new characters and items purchasable while playing. To this day, I have not reached the bottom, and I have a sense I will remain working on that task when the full version launches. I'm committed for the complete journey.