Having experienced more than 200 recent games this year, I am officially turning the page on 2025. My year-end list is out in the world, and I'm satisfied with the concluding selections, even knowing plenty of stellar titles may have dropped under the radar. Now, there's nothing for me to do other than unwind, take a short break, and maybe enjoy a nice walk in the— ah crap, stumbled upon a great game. There go my plans!
During my off-hours play, usually reserved for a few oddball curiosities, I've come across potentially my earliest beloved game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that breaks down a conventional dungeon crawler into a luck-based game of high stakes danger and payoff. View this an early adopter's heads-up: If you relish being aware of a game before it's cool, sample Sol Cesto so you can burn a spot in your wallet for unique titles.
Sol Cesto is a thought-provoking procedural game that's different from everything I've ever played. 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 its world. In practice, this results in some standard crawl progression. Pick a hero who has attributes and skills, clear floor after floor of monsters, pick up some permanent upgrades (represented as teeth), and overcome a few stage-ending champions. Easy to grasp!
The method by which you actually clear a dungeon room, though. Whenever you begin a fresh level, you see a 4x4 grid of boxes. Every tile features a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a life-giving berry. To explore a room, you just select on one of the horizontal lines, but the exact space you select is up to chance.
You may face a row with a pair of enemies, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You initially will have a one-in-four probability of hitting a specific tile in a row.
After that, the chances are recalculated. So do you press your luck, or do you choose on a safer line first and aim for less risky choices early? That's the tension between chance and safety at play in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating once you get its rhythm.
The meta-layer is that your odds can be manipulated over the course of a session by collecting teeth that change what things you're more attracted to. As an instance, you might get a perk that will lower your chances of encountering a trap, but will similarly reduce the odds of getting a reward too.
The strategic possibilities are limited, but it provides ample to work with to enable you to influence the odds according to your strategy.
Of course, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There's always the possibility that you have an 80% chance to land on the preferred space but wind up hitting a monster that would eliminate your remaining life. Each click is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you clear a floor out and determine if to continue selecting or to advance to the following level rather than testing fate.
Tools such as enemy-killing bombs aid in reducing the chance, similar to some hero powers. One hero's special power, powered up by selecting four tiles, enables you to click on a vertical column in place of a horizontal line on a turn. If you play this move wisely, you can reserve that option for a crucial point to avoid a risky decision. There's a shocking level of strategy in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.
Sol Cesto is remaining in its preview phase, and it has a final update to go until the full version is released. A new character and a new boss are scheduled to arrive before the conclusion of January. The full launch probably isn't long after, but the studio haven't announced a final date yet.
Regardless of when it's fully released, you ought to put Sol Cesto on your radar. For the past week, I've been positively obsessed with it, finding all of hidden nuances and storing my run rewards per attempt to access a constant flow of permanent unlocks, including additional heroes and items purchasable during a run. I still haven't completed the dungeon, and I have a sense I'll continue pursuing that objective when 1.0 finally hits. Sign me up for the long haul.
A tech enthusiast and gaming aficionado with over a decade of experience in digital media and content creation.
