🔗 Share this article I Think My First Favorite Game of 2026. Having experienced well over 200 recent games this year, It's time to closing the book on 2025. My best-of compilation is published, and I am at peace with the final results, even knowing numerous fantastic releases likely fell under the radar. Now, there's plan is to other than unwind, unplug a little, and maybe enjoy a nice walk in the— well, shoot, discovered one more brilliant title. And just like that, goodbye to my plans! An Early Favorite Surfaces During my laid-back sessions, usually reserved for a few oddball curiosities, I've discovered what could be my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a peculiar procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that reimagines a classic dungeon crawler into a probability-fueled game of major consequence danger and payoff. Consider this an early adopter's heads-up: If you enjoy being aware of a game before it's popular, sample Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your indie credit card. A Calculated Dungeon-Crawling Innovation Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's a departure from all I've previously experienced. The setup is that you must venture into a dungeon, going down level by level on a quest for the sun, which has disappeared from its world. When you play, that makes for some standard crawl progression. Pick a hero who has attributes and skills, clear floor after floor of monsters, collect some permanent upgrades (which are teeth), and vanquish a few area guardians. Straightforward, right! The Unique Core Mechanic How you truly navigate a dungeon room, however. Whenever you start another stage, you see a sixteen-square board of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To explore a room, you simply click on one of the four rows, but the specific tile you end up on is up to chance. You could encounter a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You start with a quarter likelihood of landing on a particular space in a row. Subsequently, your chances are recalculated. The question becomes: Do you press your luck, or do you click on a safer line first and aim for more cautious selections early? Herein lies the tension between chance and safety on display in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating once you get a feel for it. Influencing Chance The roguelike twist is that your percentages can be shaped through a run by gathering teeth that change what things you're drawn toward. To illustrate, you might get a perk that will decrease your odds of encountering a trap, but will also decrease the odds of getting a reward too. Crafting a loadout is about manipulating math to the utmost to have a improved likelihood at getting your desired outcome. During one attempt, I focused my stat upgrades toward physical attack/defense and picked as many teeth possible that would boost my chances of landing on monsters with that damage type. On a different attempt, I constructed my hero around loot caches and coupled it with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters whenever I opened a chest. The strategic possibilities are somewhat constrained, but it provides ample to engage with to allow you to tweak probabilities to your preference. An Ever-Present Risk Of course, it remains a game of chance. There's always the risk that you have a high probability to hit the square you want but end up landing a monster that would take out your remaining life. Each click is a gamble, so you feel ongoing pressure as you clear a floor out and decide when to keep clicking or to proceed to the next floor as opposed to risking it all. Tools such as enemy-killing bombs assist in minimizing the chance, as do some character abilities. An adventurer's unique ability, activated once clearing four squares, enables you to choose a vertical line instead of a horizontal row on a turn. If you play your cards right, you can save that move for the right moment to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising level of strategy in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking. Future Development Sol Cesto is still in development, and it has another update to go until the full version is unleashed. A new character and a additional end-level foe are expected to drop sometime in January. The official version may not be long after, but the studio haven't announced a specific release window yet. A Final Recommendation Whenever it's fully released, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your radar. I have been positively obsessed with it, finding all of little secrets and saving my accumulated currency per attempt to unlock a steady stream of persistent upgrades, featuring additional heroes and items available for acquisition during a run. I still haven't completed the dungeon, and I have a sense I'll still be attempting that goal when the official release drops. I'm committed for the complete journey.