I Think My First Favorite Game of 2026.
Having experienced in excess of 200 recent games this year, I am officially closing the book on 2025. My best-of compilation is published, and I am at peace with the final results, accepting that plenty of excellent games may have dropped under the radar. Currently, my only nothing for me to do except relax, take a short break, and maybe enjoy a pleasant stroll in the— well, shoot, discovered one more brilliant title. There go my peaceful respite!
A Surprising Contender Emerges
During my casual gaming time, typically earmarked for a few oddball curiosities, I've discovered potentially my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a classic dungeon crawler into a probability-fueled game of significant risk risk and reward. Consider this a hipster's insider tip: If you relish discovering a game before it's popular, sample Sol Cesto so you can punch a hole in your gaming budget.
A Calculated Genre Subversion
Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's different from everything I've previously experienced. The setup is that you need to explore a dungeon, going down level by level on a quest for the sun, which has gone missing from the fantasy world. When you play, this results in some recognizable genre framework. Choose an adventurer who has attributes and skills, fight through each level of foes, acquire some stat improvements (represented as teeth), and overcome a few area guardians. Straightforward, right!
The Distinctive Core Mechanic
The way you effectively complete a area, however. Whenever you start another stage, the game presents a 4x4 grid of boxes. Each square features a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To proceed, you simply click 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 a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You begin with a 25% chance of landing on any given square in a row.
Subsequently, your probabilities change. The question becomes: Do you go for it, or do you opt on a different row first and try to make less risky choices early? Herein lies the tension between chance and safety in action in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing when you acquire a feel for it.
Manipulating Probability
The meta-layer is that your percentages can be shaped through a run by picking up teeth that change what things you're more likely to land on. For example, you could acquire a perk that will decrease your odds of encountering a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of getting a treasure chest too.
- Developing a strategy is about manipulating math optimally to have a higher chance at landing where you want.
- On a particular session, I put all my attribute improvements toward melee prowess and chose every teeth possible that would increase my odds of being drawn to monsters with that damage type.
- In another run, I developed my adventurer around loot caches and paired that with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters whenever I opened a chest.
The build options are not endless, but there's enough to engage with to allow you to tweak the odds according to your strategy.
A Persistent Gamble
Of course, at its heart, it's a game of chance. You constantly face the chance that you have a likely outcome to select the preferred space but wind up hitting a monster that would take out your remaining life. Every move is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you clear a floor out and determine if to press onward or to proceed to the following level instead of risking it all.
Tools such as enemy-killing bombs help cut down the chance, just like some hero powers. One hero's special power, activated once clearing four squares, enables you to select a column instead of a horizontal row for that move. By employing this move wisely, you can reserve that option for an optimal time to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising amount of nuance in the basic action of clicking.
Looking Ahead
Sol Cesto is remaining in its preview phase, and it has another update to go before the final game is unleashed. Another playable adventurer and a fresh guardian are expected to drop before the conclusion of January. The official version probably isn't much later, but the game's developers haven't set a final date yet.
A Final Recommendation
No matter when it's fully released, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. For the past week, I've been completely engrossed with it, finding all of little secrets and saving my accumulated currency in each run to reveal a continuous trickle of permanent unlocks, featuring new characters and items I can buy during a run. As of now, I am yet to reached the bottom, and I suspect I'll continue attempting that goal when 1.0 finally hits. I'm committed for the complete journey.
