I Believe I Already Have Top Pick of 2026.
Having experienced more than 200 recent games this year, I'm formally wrapping things up on 2025. My annual roundup is published, and I am at peace with the concluding selections, despite being aware numerous excellent games may have dropped through the cracks. Now, there's job is to except relax, unplug a little, and possibly go for a refreshing hike in the— oh no, stumbled upon a brilliant title. So much for my peaceful respite!
A Surprising Favorite Surfaces
During my laid-back sessions, often set aside for a few oddball curiosities, I've discovered potentially my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that deconstructs a classic labyrinth explorer into a luck-based game of high stakes risk and reward. Consider this a hipster's insider tip: If you enjoy being aware of a game before it's popular, give Sol Cesto a try so you can burn a spot in your wallet for unique titles.
A Tactical Roguelike Twist
Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's different from everything I've previously experienced. The setup is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper to find the sun, which has gone missing from its world. In practice, that makes for some recognizable genre framework. Choose an adventurer possessing unique attributes and skills, defeat enemies on every stage of foes, pick up some stat improvements (which are teeth), and defeat a few area guardians. Straightforward, right!
The Distinctive Gameplay Loop
How you effectively complete a chamber, though. Each instance you start another stage, the game presents a 4x4 grid of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To proceed, you just select on one of the four rows, but which square you land in is up to chance.
You may face a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You begin 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 choose on a safer line first and try to make more cautious selections early? Herein lies the tension between chance and safety in action in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing when you acquire a feel for it.
Shaping the Odds
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 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 treasure chest too.
- Crafting a loadout is about manipulating math to the utmost to have a improved likelihood at selecting the optimal square.
- In one run, I focused my attribute improvements toward physical attack/defense and chose every teeth I could that would increase my odds of attracting me toward monsters aligned with that strength.
- On a different attempt, I developed my adventurer around treasure chests and combined that with a perk that would debuff nearby foes each time I secured loot.
The strategic possibilities are somewhat constrained, but it provides ample to engage with to allow you to tweak the odds to your preference.
A Constant Gamble
Of course, it's still a game of chance. There's always the risk that you have a high probability to land on the preferred space but wind up hitting a foe that would eliminate your last bit of health. All selections is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you work through a stage and decide when to press onward or when to move on to the following level instead of testing fate.
Consumables including enemy-killing bombs aid in reducing the chance, as do some character abilities. One hero's signature move, activated once making four moves, allows players to choose a vertical line instead of a horizontal row during that action. If you play this strategically, you can save that move 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 currently in early access, and it has at least one more update planned until the complete edition is released. An additional hero and a additional end-level foe are planned for release sometime in January. The full launch may not be much later, but the studio haven't set a specific release window yet.
A Concluding Thought
Whenever the complete game arrives, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your radar. For the past week, I've been positively obsessed with it, discovering its little secrets and saving my accumulated currency in each run to unlock a steady stream of permanent unlocks, including additional heroes and items purchasable mid-attempt. As of now, I am yet to reached the bottom, and I have a sense I'll continue attempting that goal when the full version launches. Sign me up for the complete journey.