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Following my time with more than 200 fresh titles this year, I'm formally turning the page on 2025. My best-of compilation is published, and I am at peace with the ultimate rankings, despite being aware numerous fantastic releases may have dropped through the cracks. At this point, it's nothing for me to do except relax, unplug a little, and maybe enjoy a nice walk in the— well, shoot, found another great game. And just like that, goodbye to my intentions!

A Surprising Favorite Surfaces

During my off-hours play, typically earmarked for a handful of quirky titles, I've come across what could be my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a traditional dungeon crawler into a chance-driven game of major consequence risk and reward. View this an early adopter's heads-up: If you enjoy in knowing about a game before it's popular, give Sol Cesto a try so you can punch a hole in your gaming budget.

A Strategic Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's different from everything I've previously experienced. The setup is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, descending floor after floor on a quest for the sun, which has disappeared from this mythical realm. In practice, this results in some standard crawl progression. Pick a hero possessing unique stats and abilities, clear floor after floor of enemies, collect some stat improvements (in the form of teeth), and overcome a few biome bosses. Straightforward, right!

The Distinctive Gameplay Loop

The method by which you effectively complete a chamber, is unique. Every time you start another stage, you see a sixteen-square board of boxes. All spaces features a monster, a loot box, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To explore a room, you simply click on one of the four rows, but the exact space you select is up to chance.

You could encounter a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You start with a 25% chance of hitting a particular space in a row.

Then, you'll chances are recalculated. The question becomes: Do you take the risk, or do you choose on a alternative option first and attempt some safer moves early? Herein lies the risk-reward dynamic on display in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing once you get a feel for it.

Influencing Chance

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 may obtain a perk that will lower your chances of encountering a trap, but will also decrease the odds of finding a reward too.

• Creating a build is about tweaking the numbers as best you can to have a better shot at getting your desired outcome.
• On a particular session, I invested my stat upgrades toward melee prowess and picked as many teeth I could that would boost my chances of being drawn to monsters of that variety.
• During a separate session, I built my character around loot caches and paired that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters each time I claimed a reward.

The build options are limited, but they are sufficient to work with to let you manipulate probabilities according to your strategy.

A Constant Risk

Naturally, 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 deplete your last bit of health. Every move is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you navigate a level and decide when to continue selecting or to proceed to the next floor as opposed to testing fate.

Tools such as explosive devices help cut down the chance, just like some hero powers. An adventurer's special power, activated once clearing four squares, enables you to choose a vertical line instead of a horizontal row during that action. If you play this strategically, you can reserve that option for an optimal time to sidestep a dangerous choice. It's a surprising degree of depth in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is currently in development, and it has at least one more update to go until the full version is launched. A new character and a additional end-level foe are scheduled to arrive sometime in January. The full launch likely won't be long after, but the studio haven't set a final date yet.

A Concluding Recommendation

Regardless of when the complete game arrives, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I've been thoroughly captivated with it, finding all of hidden nuances and banking my earned gold every session to access a constant flow of meta progression rewards, featuring new characters and items purchasable while playing. As of now, I am yet to completed the dungeon, and I have a sense I will remain working on that task when the official release drops. Sign me up for the entire experience.