I'm Convinced I've Already Found Top Pick of 2026.

After playing more than 200 recent games this year, I am officially closing the book on 2025. My annual roundup is out in the world, and I'm satisfied with the concluding selections, even knowing a host of stellar titles may have dropped by the wayside. At this point, it's plan is to other than unwind, unplug a little, and perhaps take a nice walk in the— well, shoot, discovered one more great game. So much for my intentions!

A Premature Front-Runner Appears

With my laid-back sessions, often set aside for a selection of unusual games, I've discovered what could be my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual roguelike for Windows PC that deconstructs a classic dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of significant risk peril and prize. View this a preview for the in-the-know: If you enjoy discovering a game before it's popular, sample Sol Cesto so you can burn a spot in your indie credit card.

A Tactical Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's unlike anything I've ever played. The concept is that you must venture into a dungeon, descending floor after floor on a quest for the sun, which has disappeared from the fantasy world. Mechanically, that makes for some recognizable genre framework. Choose an adventurer with their own stats and abilities, defeat enemies on every stage of foes, acquire some passive buffs (which are teeth), and defeat a few biome bosses. Simple enough!

The Unique Gameplay Loop

The method by which you truly navigate a area, is unique. Each instance you start another stage, you're shown a 4x4 grid of boxes. Each square either contains a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a healing strawberry. 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 two monsters, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You start with a quarter likelihood of landing on any given square in a row.

After that, the odds shift. The question becomes: Do you take the risk, or do you choose on a alternative option first and attempt some more cautious selections early? This is the push-your-luck gameplay on display in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing when you acquire an understanding of it.

Manipulating Probability

The meta-layer is that your probabilities can be influenced during an attempt by collecting teeth that alter which objects you're more likely to land on. As an instance, you may obtain a perk that will decrease your odds of encountering a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of landing on a treasure chest too.

• Creating a build is about manipulating math optimally to have a higher chance at landing where you want.
• During one attempt, I invested my attribute improvements toward melee prowess and chose every teeth possible that would improve my probability of landing on monsters with that damage type.
• In another run, I developed my adventurer around reward boxes and coupled it with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters each time I claimed a reward.

The build options are somewhat constrained, but they are sufficient to work with to let you manipulate the odds according to your strategy.

A Persistent Risk

Of course, at its heart, it's a game of chance. You constantly face the risk that you have a likely outcome to select the square you want but end up landing on an enemy that would take out your final hit point. Every move is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you navigate a level and decide when to press onward or to advance to the next floor rather than risking it all.

Items like destructive ordnance help cut down the chance, as do some hero powers. One hero's signature move, powered up by clearing four squares, enables you to choose a vertical line instead of a horizontal row for that move. By employing this strategically, you can reserve that option for a crucial point to circumvent a perilous selection. It's a surprising level of strategy in the simple act of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is currently in early access, and it has at least one more update to go before the complete edition is launched. An additional hero and a new boss are scheduled to arrive by the end of January. The 1.0 release may not be much later, but the studio haven't committed to a concrete launch day yet.

A Concluding Endorsement

No matter when the complete game arrives, you ought to put Sol Cesto in your sights. For the past week, I've been completely engrossed with it, finding all of hidden nuances and saving my accumulated currency every session to unlock a steady stream of persistent upgrades, including fresh adventurers and items purchasable while playing. To this day, I have not reached the bottom, and I have a sense I'll still be attempting that goal when the full version launches. Sign me up for the long haul.