🔗 Share this article I Think I Already Have Must-Play Title of 2026. Following my time with in excess of 200 fresh titles this year, I'm formally closing the book on 2025. My best-of compilation is published, and I am at peace with the concluding selections, accepting that a host of fantastic releases likely fell under the radar. Now, there's nothing for me to do except relax, unplug a little, and maybe enjoy a refreshing hike in the— ah crap, found another amazing experience. There go my intentions! An Early Contender Emerges In my more casual gaming time, typically earmarked for a selection of unusual games, I've discovered what might become my initial top game of 2026. Sol Cesto is an unusual procedural dungeon crawler for Windows PC that breaks down a classic dungeon crawler into a chance-driven game of significant risk peril and prize. Take this as an early adopter's heads-up: If you take pride being aware of a game before it's popular, give Sol Cesto a try so you can burn a spot in your wallet for unique titles. A Strategic Dungeon-Crawling Innovation Sol Cesto is a strategy-focused dungeon crawler that's different from everything I've previously experienced. The concept is that you need to explore a dungeon, progressing deeper and deeper to find the sun, which has vanished from its world. In practice, that makes for some standard crawl progression. Select a character possessing unique stats and abilities, fight through each level of enemies, acquire some permanent upgrades (which are teeth), and defeat a few stage-ending champions. Simple enough! The Distinctive Core Mechanic The way you actually clear a chamber, is unique. Whenever you enter a new floor, you're shown a sixteen-square board of boxes. Every tile features a monster, a reward cache, a trap, or a health-restoring fruit. To make a move, you just select on one of the horizontal lines, but which square you select is a matter of probability. You may face a row with multiple foes, a strawberry, and a treasure chest in it. You initially will have a quarter likelihood of landing on a particular space in a row. Then, you'll odds shift. The question becomes: Do you press your luck, or do you click on a different row first and attempt some more cautious selections early? Herein lies the push-your-luck gameplay at play in Sol Cesto, and it's engrossing when you acquire its rhythm. Manipulating Probability The procedural hook is that your odds can be manipulated through a run by gathering teeth that alter which objects you're more attracted to. To illustrate, you could acquire a perk that will reduce the probability of hitting a trap, but will also decrease the odds of finding a treasure chest too. Creating a build is about influencing the statistics as best you can to have a better shot at getting your desired outcome. In one run, I focused my power boosts toward physical attack/defense and selected all the teeth possible that would boost my chances of being drawn to monsters aligned with that strength. During a separate session, I developed my adventurer around treasure chests and coupled it with a perk that would debuff nearby foes each time I opened a chest. The customization choices are not endless, but there's enough to work with to enable you to influence the odds the way you want. A Persistent Tension Unsurprisingly, it remains a game of chance. You constantly face the possibility that you have a high probability to hit the preferred space but end up landing a foe that would take out your final hit point. Each click is a gamble, so a persistent nervousness exists as you navigate a level and decide when to keep clicking or when to move on to the next floor rather than pushing your luck. Items like destructive ordnance assist in minimizing the chance, as do some hero powers. An adventurer's signature move, charged after selecting four tiles, lets gamers to choose a column in place of a row for that move. If you play your cards right, you can save that move for an optimal time to circumvent a perilous selection. There's a shocking degree of depth in the seemingly straightforward task of clicking. The Road to 1.0 Sol Cesto is still in development, and it has at least one more update to go until the complete edition is launched. An additional hero and a new boss are expected to drop by the end of January. The official version probably isn't far behind, but the studio haven't set a final date yet. A Final Recommendation No matter when the complete game arrives, you should consider put Sol Cesto on your wishlist. I have been positively obsessed with it, discovering its little secrets and saving my accumulated currency per attempt to reveal a continuous trickle of meta progression rewards, such as additional heroes and items purchasable while playing. As of now, I am yet to completed the dungeon, and I have a sense I will remain working on that task when 1.0 finally hits. Sign me up for the complete journey.