I Think My First Favorite Game of 2026.
Following my time with well over 200 new releases this year, It's time to turning the page on 2025. My year-end list is published, and I feel content with the ultimate rankings, even knowing numerous fantastic releases may have dropped under the radar. Currently, my only job is to other than unwind, take a short break, and maybe enjoy a refreshing hike in the— ah crap, stumbled upon a brilliant title. And just like that, goodbye to my intentions!
A Surprising Front-Runner Appears
In my more off-hours play, usually reserved for a handful of quirky titles, I've come across potentially my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual roguelike for Windows PC that breaks down a traditional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of significant risk danger and payoff. View this a preview for the in-the-know: If you enjoy being aware of a game before it hits the mainstream, sample Sol Cesto so you can burn a spot in your gaming budget.
A Tactical Roguelike Twist
Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's a departure from all I've ever played. The concept is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, going down level by level to find the sun, which has disappeared from its world. Mechanically, this results in some standard crawl progression. Pick a hero with their own attributes and skills, clear floor after floor of enemies, collect some permanent upgrades (represented as teeth), and defeat a few stage-ending champions. Straightforward, right!
The Novel Gameplay Loop
The way you actually clear a dungeon room, however. Every time you begin a fresh level, you're shown a 4x4 grid of boxes. Every tile either contains a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To make a move, you choose on one of the horizontal lines, but the exact space you end up on is a matter of probability.
You might see a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You begin with a quarter likelihood of selecting a specific tile in a row.
Then, you'll chances are recalculated. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you click on a different row first and aim for safer moves early? That's the risk-reward dynamic at play in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing after you develop a feel for it.
Influencing Chance
The meta-layer is that your percentages can be shaped through a run by gathering teeth that modify the types of squares you're more likely to land on. To illustrate, you may obtain a perk that will lower your chances of landing on a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of getting a reward too.
- Crafting a loadout is about tweaking the numbers optimally to have a improved likelihood at getting your desired outcome.
- During one attempt, I put all my power boosts toward brute force and chose every teeth I could that would boost my chances of being drawn to monsters aligned with that strength.
- In another run, I built my character around treasure chests and coupled it with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters every time I opened a chest.
The strategic possibilities are limited, but they are sufficient to experiment with to allow you to tweak probabilities the way you want.
A Constant Risk
Naturally, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There remains the risk that you have an 80% chance to select the preferred space but wind up hitting on an enemy that would eliminate your last bit of health. All selections is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you clear a floor out and choose whether to keep clicking or when to move on to the subsequent stage instead of pushing your luck.
Consumables including destructive ordnance assist in minimizing the chance, just like some special skills. A particular character's unique ability, activated once selecting four tiles, enables you to choose a column in place of a row during that action. If you play this move wisely, you can hold that ability for a crucial point to avoid a risky decision. You'll find an astonishing amount of nuance in the simple act of clicking.
Looking Ahead
Sol Cesto is currently in early access, and it has another update scheduled before the final game is launched. Another playable adventurer and a fresh guardian are planned for release by the end of January. The full launch may not be far behind, but the studio haven't announced a specific release window yet.
A Concluding Thought
Whenever its 1.0 launch occurs, you ought to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. For the past week, I've been positively obsessed with it, discovering its little secrets and saving my accumulated currency in each run to reveal a continuous trickle of persistent upgrades, such as additional heroes and items purchasable while playing. To this day, I have not completed the dungeon, and I suspect I'll continue pursuing that objective when the official release drops. Count me in for the complete journey.
