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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 concluding selections, even knowing plenty of excellent games probably slipped through the cracks. At this point, it's plan is to other than unwind, unplug a little, and possibly go for a nice walk in the— well, shoot, found another amazing experience. And just like that, goodbye to my intentions!

An Early Contender Emerges

During my laid-back sessions, typically earmarked for a selection of unusual games, I've come across what could be my earliest beloved game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that deconstructs a traditional labyrinth explorer into a probability-fueled game of significant risk peril and prize. Take this as a hipster's insider tip: If you relish being aware of a game before it hits the mainstream, give Sol Cesto a try so you can make a dent in your indie credit card.

A Calculated Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's unlike anything I've ever played. The setup is that you need to explore a dungeon, going down level by level to find the sun, which has disappeared from the fantasy world. When you play, this results in some recognizable genre framework. Select a character who has attributes and skills, fight through each level of foes, collect some stat improvements (which are teeth), and overcome a few biome bosses. Straightforward, right!

The Unique Core Mechanic

The method by which you truly navigate a area, is unique. Each instance you start another stage, you're shown a four-by-four matrix of boxes. Every tile either contains a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To make a move, you simply click on one of the four rows, but which square you end up on is a matter of probability.

You could encounter a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You begin with a 25% chance of landing on a specific tile in a row.

Subsequently, your chances are recalculated. So do you press your luck, or do you opt on a different row first and attempt some safer moves early? That's the tension between chance and safety in action in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing after you develop an understanding of it.

Shaping the Odds

The procedural hook is that your probabilities can be influenced over the course of a session by gathering teeth that modify the types of squares you're drawn toward. For example, you could acquire a perk that will lower your chances of encountering a trap, but will also decrease the odds of finding a reward too.

• Developing a strategy is about influencing the statistics optimally to have a better shot at selecting the optimal square.
• During one attempt, I focused my power boosts toward brute force and picked as many teeth possible that would improve my probability of landing on monsters aligned with that strength.
• During a separate session, I constructed my hero around reward boxes and coupled it with a perk that would debuff nearby foes whenever I secured loot.

The strategic possibilities are not endless, but it provides ample to experiment with to let you manipulate probabilities according to your strategy.

An Ever-Present Gamble

Of course, it remains a game of chance. There's always the risk that you have a likely outcome to select the desired tile but ultimately choose a monster that would take out your remaining life. All selections is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you work through a stage and choose whether to keep clicking or to proceed to the following level instead of pushing your luck.

Consumables including destructive ordnance help cut down the chance, as do some special skills. An adventurer's unique ability, charged after clearing four squares, enables you to click on a vertical column rather than a row for that move. Should you use your cards right, you can hold that ability for a crucial point to sidestep a dangerous choice. There's a shocking amount of nuance in the simple act of clicking.

The Road to 1.0

Sol Cesto is still in its preview phase, and it has another update to go before the final game is launched. Another playable adventurer and a additional end-level foe are expected to drop sometime in January. The full launch likely won't be much later, but the studio haven't set a specific release window yet.

A Concluding Recommendation

Regardless of when the complete game arrives, you ought to put Sol Cesto on your radar. For the past week, I've been thoroughly captivated with it, discovering its hidden nuances and storing my run rewards per attempt to unlock a steady stream of permanent unlocks, featuring fresh adventurers and items purchasable while playing. I still haven't reached the bottom, and I have a sense I will remain working on that task when the full version launches. Sign me up for the entire experience.