I Believe My First Must-Play Title of 2026.

Having experienced well over 200 recent games this year, It's time to turning the page on 2025. My best-of compilation is live, and I am at peace with the final results, even knowing plenty of stellar titles likely fell through the cracks. Now, there's nothing for me to do except relax, disconnect briefly, and possibly go for a pleasant stroll in the— oh no, found another amazing experience. So much for my peaceful respite!

An Early Favorite Surfaces

In my more casual gaming time, typically earmarked for a selection of unusual games, I've come across what might become my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual roguelike for Windows PC that reimagines a traditional labyrinth explorer into a luck-based game of major consequence risk and reward. View this an early adopter's heads-up: If you enjoy discovering a game before it hits the mainstream, test out Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your indie credit card.

A Strategic Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's different from everything I've ever played. The concept is that you need to explore a dungeon, descending floor after floor to find the sun, which has vanished from the fantasy world. Mechanically, that makes for some familiar roguelike structure. Select a character possessing unique attributes and skills, fight through each level of enemies, pick up some permanent upgrades (in the form of teeth), and overcome a few area guardians. Easy to grasp!

The Unique Gameplay Loop

The method by which you truly navigate a dungeon room, though. Every time you start another stage, you're shown a four-by-four matrix of boxes. Every tile holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To make a move, you simply click on one of the horizontal lines, but the specific tile you select is a matter of probability.

You may face a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You begin with a one-in-four probability of hitting a particular space in a row.

Then, you'll odds shift. The question becomes: Do you take the risk, or do you choose on a different row first and aim for safer moves early? This is the push-your-luck gameplay on display in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating after you develop a feel for it.

Manipulating Probability

The meta-layer is that your percentages can be shaped over the course of a session by picking up teeth that alter which objects you're drawn toward. To illustrate, you might get a perk that will decrease your odds of landing on a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of landing on a treasure chest too.

• Creating a build is about manipulating math optimally to have a improved likelihood at selecting the optimal square.
• In one run, I put all my power boosts toward physical attack/defense and chose every teeth possible that would boost my chances of being drawn to monsters of that variety.
• In another run, I built my character around loot caches and coupled it with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies each time I secured loot.

The strategic possibilities are somewhat constrained, but there's enough to engage with to allow you to tweak probabilities the way you want.

A Persistent Gamble

Unsurprisingly, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There remains the chance that you have a likely outcome to select the desired tile but ultimately choose a foe that would take out your final hit point. Each click is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you navigate a level and choose whether to press onward or when to move on to the next floor as opposed to pushing your luck.

Items like explosive devices help cut down the chance, as do some character abilities. One hero's unique ability, activated once making four moves, allows players to choose a column in place of a row on a turn. By employing this strategically, you can save that move for the right moment to avoid a risky decision. There's a shocking amount of nuance in the simple act of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is still in its preview phase, and it has another update to go before the full version is launched. A new character and a additional end-level foe are expected to drop sometime in January. The official version probably isn't much later, but the studio haven't announced a specific release window yet.

A Parting Endorsement

No matter when its 1.0 launch occurs, you might want to put Sol Cesto in your sights. I've been thoroughly captivated with it, uncovering each of small details and saving my accumulated currency in each run to unlock a steady stream of persistent upgrades, featuring new characters and items purchasable while playing. I still haven't completed the dungeon, and I have a sense I'll still be pursuing that objective when 1.0 finally hits. Count me in for the entire experience.