🔗 Share this article I'm Convinced I've Already Found Favorite Game of 2026. Following my time with in excess of 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 final results, even knowing a host of excellent games likely fell by the wayside. At this point, it's nothing for me to do but sit back, unplug a little, and possibly go for a refreshing hike in the— oh no, found another amazing experience. And just like that, goodbye to my plans! A Premature Front-Runner Appears During my laid-back sessions, usually reserved for a selection of unusual games, I've discovered what could be my first favorite game of 2026. Sol Cesto is a distinctive procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that deconstructs a conventional labyrinth explorer into a chance-driven game of high stakes risk and reward. Consider this a hipster's insider tip: If you take pride being aware of a game before it's cool, give Sol Cesto a try so you can make a dent in your indie credit card. A Strategic Roguelike Twist Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's a departure from all I'm familiar with. The setup is that you must venture into a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper to find the sun, which has gone missing from its world. Mechanically, this creates some recognizable genre framework. Pick a hero who has attributes and skills, clear floor after floor of monsters, acquire some permanent upgrades (represented as teeth), and overcome a few biome bosses. Simple enough! The Unique Central System The method by which you truly navigate a area, though. Each instance you enter a new floor, you see a 4x4 grid of boxes. All spaces holds a monster, a treasure chest, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To make a move, you just select on one of the four rows, but the exact space you land in is a matter of probability. You could encounter a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a reward box in it. You initially will have a 25% chance of hitting any given square in a row. Then, you'll probabilities change. So do you take the risk, or do you opt on a different row first and try to make less risky choices early? This is the push-your-luck gameplay in action in Sol Cesto, and it's captivating when you acquire an understanding of it. Influencing Chance The procedural hook is that your percentages can be shaped during an attempt by gathering teeth that alter which objects you're more likely to land on. For example, you may obtain a perk that will decrease your odds of encountering a trap, but will also decrease the odds of finding a reward too. Creating a build is about tweaking the numbers to the utmost to have a higher chance at getting your desired outcome. On a particular session, I invested my power boosts toward melee prowess and picked as many teeth I could that would increase my odds of being drawn to monsters aligned with that strength. On a different attempt, I constructed my hero around reward boxes and coupled it with a perk that would weaken adjacent enemies every time I opened a chest. The customization choices are limited, but there's enough to engage with to allow you to tweak the odds the way you want. A Constant Risk Of course, it remains a game of chance. There remains the risk that you have a likely outcome to select the preferred space but wind up hitting a foe that would eliminate your last bit of health. All selections is a gamble, so there's a constant tension as you work through a stage and choose whether to keep clicking or to proceed to the following level rather than risking it all. Items like enemy-killing bombs assist in minimizing the chance, just like some special skills. An adventurer's special power, powered up by clearing four squares, enables you to click on a column instead of a horizontal line on a turn. By employing this move wisely, you can hold that ability for the right moment to avoid a risky decision. It's a surprising degree of depth in the basic action of clicking. Future Development Sol Cesto is still in development, and it has a final update planned until the complete edition is unleashed. Another playable adventurer and a additional end-level foe are planned for release before the conclusion of January. The 1.0 release likely won't be far behind, but the studio haven't announced a final date yet. A Concluding Recommendation Regardless of when its 1.0 launch occurs, you might want to put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. For the past week, I've been positively obsessed with it, uncovering each of hidden nuances and storing my run rewards every session to unlock a steady stream of persistent upgrades, such as new characters and items I can buy mid-attempt. To this day, I have not reached the bottom, and I get the feeling I'll still be working on that task when the full version launches. Count me in for the complete journey.