I'm Convinced I Already Have Favorite Game of 2026.

After playing more than 200 new releases this year, I am officially wrapping things up on 2025. My best-of compilation is out in the world, and I am at peace with the final results, accepting that plenty of fantastic releases may have dropped by the wayside. At this point, it's plan is to except relax, take a short break, and maybe enjoy a pleasant stroll in the— ah crap, discovered one more amazing experience. And just like that, goodbye to my plans!

A Surprising Favorite Surfaces

With my casual gaming time, usually reserved for a handful of quirky titles, I've come across what might become my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual roguelike for Windows PC that deconstructs a classic labyrinth explorer into a luck-based game of significant risk peril and prize. View this a hipster's insider tip: If you relish discovering a game before it's cool, test out Sol Cesto so you can make a dent in your wallet for unique titles.

A Tactical Dungeon-Crawling Innovation

Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's different from everything I've previously experienced. The premise is that you need to explore a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper on a quest for the sun, which has gone missing from its world. Mechanically, that makes for some standard crawl progression. Select a character with their own attributes and skills, fight through each level of foes, acquire some permanent upgrades (represented as teeth), and vanquish a few stage-ending champions. Straightforward, right!

The Distinctive Core Mechanic

The method by which you truly navigate a area, is unique. Every time you begin a fresh level, you're shown a 4x4 grid of boxes. Every tile holds a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To explore a room, you just select on one of the horizontal lines, but which square you land in is a matter of probability.

You might see a row with two monsters, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You initially will have a quarter likelihood of hitting any given square in a row.

After that, the chances are recalculated. So do you take the risk, or do you opt on a safer line first and try to make less risky choices early? That's the push-your-luck gameplay in action in Sol Cesto, and it's absorbing when you acquire an understanding of it.

Manipulating Probability

The meta-layer is that your percentages can be shaped during an attempt by picking up teeth that change what things you're drawn toward. For example, you could acquire a perk that will lower your chances of hitting a trap, but will also decrease the odds of finding a reward too.

• Developing a strategy is about influencing the statistics as best you can to have a improved likelihood at landing where you want.
• In one run, I put all my stat upgrades toward melee prowess and selected all the teeth possible that would improve my probability of being drawn to monsters with that damage type.
• On a different attempt, I developed my adventurer around treasure chests and coupled it with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies every time I opened a chest.

The strategic possibilities are limited, but there's enough to experiment with to enable you to influence numbers according to your strategy.

An Ever-Present Risk

Naturally, at its heart, it's a game of chance. There remains the chance that you have a likely outcome to select the desired tile but ultimately choose a monster that would take out your remaining life. All selections is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you work through a stage and choose whether to press onward or to proceed to the subsequent stage as opposed to testing fate.

Tools such as destructive ordnance aid in reducing the chance, similar to some hero powers. A particular character's signature move, powered up by clearing four squares, enables you to click on a vertical column in place of a row for that move. Should you use this strategically, you can hold that ability for the right moment to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising amount of nuance in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking.

Future Development

Sol Cesto is remaining in its preview phase, and it has a final update scheduled before the final game is unleashed. Another playable adventurer and a fresh guardian are planned for release before the conclusion of January. The full launch likely won't be much later, but the studio haven't set a concrete launch day yet.

A Parting Recommendation

No matter when it's fully released, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. For the past week, I've been thoroughly captivated with it, uncovering each of small details and banking my earned gold in each run to access a constant flow of permanent unlocks, such as fresh adventurers and items purchasable mid-attempt. To this day, I have not reached the bottom, and I have a sense I'll continue pursuing that objective when 1.0 finally hits. Count me in for the entire experience.