I Believe I've Already Found Top Pick of 2026.

After playing well over 200 recent games this year, I'm formally turning the page on 2025. My best-of compilation is published, and I'm satisfied with the final results, even knowing a host of fantastic releases may have dropped through the cracks. Currently, my only plan is to except relax, disconnect briefly, and possibly go for a nice walk in the— oh no, stumbled upon a great game. So much for my peaceful respite!

A Premature Front-Runner Appears

With my casual gaming time, typically earmarked for a selection of unusual games, I've come across what might become my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual roguelike for Windows PC that reimagines a traditional dungeon crawler into a chance-driven game of significant risk danger and payoff. Take this as an early adopter's heads-up: If you take pride in knowing about a game before it's popular, give Sol Cesto a try so you can punch a hole in your wallet for unique titles.

A Tactical Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a tactical roguelike that's a departure from all I've previously experienced. The premise is that you are tasked with descending into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper in search of the sun, which has vanished from its world. When you play, this results in some familiar roguelike structure. Choose an adventurer who has attributes and skills, defeat enemies on every stage of foes, collect some passive buffs (represented as teeth), and vanquish a few stage-ending champions. Easy to grasp!

The Distinctive Core Mechanic

The method by which you truly navigate a chamber, though. Each instance you begin a fresh level, you're shown a sixteen-square board of boxes. Each square holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a healing strawberry. To make a move, you choose on one of the four rows, but the specific tile you end up on is a matter of probability.

You could encounter a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You begin with a one-in-four probability of landing on a specific tile in a row.

Subsequently, your probabilities change. The question becomes: Do you take the risk, or do you click on a safer line first and try to make more cautious selections early? Herein lies the risk-reward dynamic at play in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing once you get its rhythm.

Shaping the Odds

The roguelike twist is that your odds can be manipulated through a run by gathering teeth that alter which objects you're more likely to land on. For example, you may obtain a perk that will lower your chances of landing on a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of landing on a reward too.

• Crafting a loadout is about influencing the statistics optimally to have a better shot at landing where you want.
• On a particular session, I invested my stat upgrades toward melee prowess and selected all the teeth I could that would increase my odds of landing on monsters aligned with that strength.
• On a different attempt, I built my character around reward boxes and coupled it with a perk that would debuff nearby foes every time I opened a chest.

The strategic possibilities are limited, but they are sufficient to experiment with to allow you to tweak the odds to your preference.

An Ever-Present Risk

Naturally, it's still a game of chance. There's always the possibility that you have an 80% chance to select the preferred space but ultimately choose a monster 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 determine if to continue selecting or when to move on to the next floor rather than testing fate.

Consumables including enemy-killing bombs assist in minimizing the chance, similar to some hero powers. One hero's signature move, activated once making four moves, allows players to choose a vertical line in place of a horizontal line on a turn. Should you use this move wisely, you can save that move for a crucial point to sidestep a dangerous choice. It's a surprising degree of depth in the simple act of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is still in early access, and it has another update scheduled until the full version is launched. Another playable adventurer and a new boss are expected to drop before the conclusion of January. The 1.0 release likely won't be long after, but the game's developers haven't committed to a concrete launch day yet.

A Final Endorsement

Whenever the complete game arrives, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I've been completely engrossed with it, discovering its hidden nuances and banking my earned gold in each run to access a constant flow of meta progression rewards, featuring new characters and items I can buy mid-attempt. I still haven't completed the dungeon, and I get the feeling I'll still be working on that task when the full version launches. Sign me up for the entire experience.