🔗 Share this article I'm Convinced I Already Have Favorite Game of 2026. Following my time with in excess of 200 fresh titles this year, It's time to wrapping things up on 2025. My annual roundup is published, and I am at peace with the final results, despite being aware plenty of excellent games likely fell through the cracks. Now, there's plan is to except relax, unplug a little, and perhaps take a refreshing hike in the— well, shoot, found another brilliant title. And just like that, goodbye to my plans! An Early Front-Runner Appears With my off-hours play, usually reserved for a handful of quirky titles, I've come across potentially my earliest beloved game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a traditional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of high stakes danger and payoff. Consider this an early adopter's heads-up: If you take pride in knowing about a game before it hits the mainstream, sample Sol Cesto so you can punch a hole in your wallet for unique titles. A Calculated Roguelike Twist Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's unlike anything I've ever played. The setup is that you need to explore a dungeon, descending floor after floor to find the sun, which has gone missing from this mythical realm. In practice, that makes for some familiar roguelike structure. Select a character who has stats and abilities, defeat enemies on every stage of monsters, collect some permanent upgrades (represented as teeth), and overcome a few stage-ending champions. Straightforward, right! The Distinctive Gameplay Loop The way you effectively complete a dungeon room, though. Each instance you begin a fresh level, you see a four-by-four matrix of boxes. Every tile holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To make a move, you simply click on one of the horizontal lines, but the specific tile you end up on is up to chance. You could encounter a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a quarter likelihood of landing on any given square in a row. Subsequently, your odds shift. So do you press your luck, or do you opt on a different row first and attempt some more cautious selections early? That's the risk-reward dynamic in action in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating when you acquire a feel for it. Shaping the Odds The procedural hook is that your percentages can be shaped through a run by collecting teeth that change what things you're more attracted to. To illustrate, you might get a perk that will reduce the probability of landing on a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of finding a reward too. Crafting a loadout is about influencing the statistics optimally to have a better shot at getting your desired outcome. During one attempt, I invested my attribute improvements toward physical attack/defense and chose every teeth possible that would boost my chances of being drawn to monsters of that variety. During a separate session, I developed my adventurer around treasure chests and combined that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters each time I claimed a reward. The strategic possibilities are not endless, but it provides ample to work with to allow you to tweak probabilities to your preference. A Persistent Tension Naturally, at its heart, it's a game of chance. You constantly face the chance that you have a likely outcome to hit the square you want but end up landing a monster that would deplete your remaining life. Every move is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you clear a floor out and determine if to keep clicking or to advance to the following level instead of pushing your luck. Consumables including destructive ordnance aid in reducing the chance, as do some special skills. One hero's signature move, powered up by making four moves, lets gamers to click on a vertical column in place of a horizontal line during that action. Should you use your cards right, you can save that move for the right moment to avoid a risky decision. You'll find an astonishing level of strategy in the simple act of clicking. Looking Ahead Sol Cesto is still in its preview phase, and it has a final update to go until the full version is unleashed. An additional hero and a new boss are planned for release sometime in January. The 1.0 release likely won't be far behind, but the studio haven't set a concrete launch day yet. A Final Endorsement Whenever it's fully released, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been thoroughly captivated with it, uncovering each of hidden nuances and storing my run rewards every session to reveal a continuous trickle of persistent upgrades, such as additional heroes and items I can buy mid-attempt. As of now, I am yet to completed the dungeon, and I suspect I'll continue working on that task when the official release drops. I'm committed for the long haul.