🔗 Share this article

Having experienced in excess of 200 fresh titles this year, I am officially wrapping things up on 2025. My best-of compilation is out in the world, and I'm satisfied with the ultimate rankings, accepting that a host of excellent games may have dropped under the radar. At this point, it's plan is to except relax, take a short break, and perhaps take a pleasant stroll in the— ah crap, found another great game. So much for my peaceful respite!

A Surprising Front-Runner Appears

In my more off-hours play, often set aside for a selection of unusual games, I've come across potentially my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual roguelike for Windows PC that deconstructs a traditional labyrinth explorer into a chance-driven game of major consequence danger and payoff. View this a hipster's insider tip: If you relish discovering a game before it hits the mainstream, sample Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your indie credit card.

A Calculated Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's a departure from all I've previously experienced. The premise is that you must venture into a dungeon, descending floor after floor in search of the sun, which has disappeared from the fantasy world. When you play, this creates some standard crawl progression. Pick a hero possessing unique stats and abilities, defeat enemies on every stage of foes, collect some permanent upgrades (which are teeth), and vanquish a few stage-ending champions. Easy to grasp!

The Unique Gameplay Loop

The way you actually clear a area, however. Each instance you enter a new floor, you're shown a sixteen-square board of boxes. All spaces features a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To proceed, you choose on one of the four rows, but the specific tile you end up on is determined by luck.

You could encounter a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You start with a 25% chance of selecting a particular space in a row.

Subsequently, your chances are recalculated. So do you go for it, or do you opt on a alternative option first and try to make more cautious selections early? This is the push-your-luck gameplay at play in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating once you get a feel for it.

Influencing Chance

The roguelike twist is that your percentages can be shaped during an attempt by collecting teeth that alter which objects you're drawn toward. For example, you might get a perk that will decrease your odds of hitting a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of getting a reward too.

• Creating a build is about manipulating math to the utmost to have a improved likelihood at landing where you want.
• During one attempt, I focused my stat upgrades toward melee prowess and selected all the teeth I could that would boost my chances of attracting me toward monsters of that variety.
• On a different attempt, I developed my adventurer around reward boxes and coupled it with a perk that would debuff nearby foes whenever I opened a chest.

The build options are not endless, but they are sufficient to experiment with to allow you to tweak numbers according to your strategy.

A Constant Tension

Of course, it remains a game of chance. There remains the possibility that you have an 80% chance to select the preferred space but end up landing a monster that would eliminate your last bit of health. Every move is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you work through a stage and decide when to keep clicking or when to move on to the subsequent stage rather than pushing your luck.

Tools such as explosive devices help cut down the chance, similar to some character abilities. One hero's signature move, activated once selecting four tiles, enables you to select a column instead of a horizontal line during that action. If you play your cards right, you can save that move for the right moment to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising degree of depth in the basic action of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is still in early access, and it has at least one more update scheduled before the final game is unleashed. An additional hero and a new boss are planned for release by the end of January. The full launch may not be far behind, but the game's developers haven't announced a final date yet.

A Parting Thought

No matter when the complete game arrives, you ought to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I've been thoroughly captivated with it, finding all of hidden nuances and saving my accumulated currency every session to access a constant flow of persistent upgrades, including fresh adventurers and items I can buy during a run. I still haven't found the deepest level, and I suspect I'll still be attempting that goal when the full version launches. I'm committed for the entire experience.