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

Following my time with in excess of 200 recent games this year, I am officially turning the page on 2025. My year-end list is out in the world, and I am at peace with the final results, accepting that plenty of excellent games may have dropped by the wayside. Now, there's plan is to other than unwind, take a short break, and maybe enjoy a refreshing hike in the— ah crap, found another amazing experience. So much for my peaceful respite!

A Premature Contender Emerges

During my casual gaming time, usually reserved for a selection of unusual games, I've come across potentially my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that deconstructs a classic dungeon crawler into a chance-driven game of significant risk peril and prize. Take this as a hipster's insider tip: If you enjoy being aware of a game before it hits the mainstream, test out Sol Cesto so you can burn a spot in your gaming budget.

A Calculated Roguelike Twist

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's different from everything I've ever played. The premise is that you need to explore a dungeon, going down level by level on a quest for the sun, which has gone missing from its world. Mechanically, this creates some standard crawl progression. Pick a hero possessing unique stats and abilities, fight through each level of monsters, pick up some stat improvements (represented as teeth), and vanquish a few area guardians. Easy to grasp!

The Unique Core Mechanic

The way you truly navigate a dungeon room, though. Each instance you begin a fresh level, you see a four-by-four matrix of boxes. Each square either contains a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To make a move, you just select on one of the four rows, but the exact space you end up on is up to chance.

You could encounter a row with a pair of enemies, 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.

Then, you'll odds shift. So do you press your luck, or do you choose on a safer line first and attempt some more cautious selections early? Herein lies the risk-reward dynamic at play in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing after you develop a feel for it.

Influencing Chance

The procedural hook is that your probabilities can be influenced during an attempt by collecting teeth that modify the types of squares you're more attracted to. As an instance, you might get a perk that will reduce the probability of hitting a trap, but will concurrently lower the odds of getting a treasure chest too.

• Crafting a loadout is about tweaking the numbers optimally to have a better shot at landing where you want.
• On a particular session, I put all my power boosts toward physical attack/defense and selected all the teeth possible that would boost my chances of attracting me toward monsters of that variety.
• On a different attempt, I developed my adventurer around treasure chests and coupled it with a perk that would reduce the power of surrounding monsters each time I claimed a reward.

The build options are not endless, but there's enough to experiment with to enable you to influence probabilities according to your strategy.

A Persistent Gamble

Naturally, it's still a game of chance. You constantly face the chance that you have a likely outcome to land on the preferred space but end up landing a monster that would eliminate your final hit point. All selections is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you work through a stage and choose whether to continue selecting or when to move on to the subsequent stage rather than testing fate.

Tools such as destructive ordnance help cut down the chance, similar to some special skills. A particular character's special power, charged after selecting four tiles, allows players to select a vertical line in place of a horizontal line on a turn. Should you use your cards right, you can reserve that option for a crucial point to circumvent a perilous selection. It's a surprising amount of nuance in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Looking Ahead

Sol Cesto is still in early access, and it has a final update scheduled until the complete edition is launched. A new character and a new boss are scheduled to arrive by the end of January. The full launch may not be much later, but the game's developers haven't announced a final date yet.

A Final Recommendation

Whenever it's fully released, you ought to put Sol Cesto in your sights. For the past week, I've been thoroughly captivated with it, discovering its small details and banking my earned gold every session to unlock a steady stream of permanent unlocks, including fresh adventurers and items I can buy mid-attempt. As of now, I am yet to reached the bottom, and I get the feeling I'll still be working on that task when 1.0 finally hits. Sign me up for the entire experience.