Who is making Dumpster Gang?

Coyote House Games

A two-person studio, and Dumpster Gang is its first game. Jake and Sam met at college and describe the studio as being united by co-op games and raccoons, which is a shorter and more honest mission statement than most studios manage.

Their individual backgrounds are the more useful part. Sam was game director on Midnight Ghost Hunt, an asymmetric multiplayer game about hiding as objects while a team hunts you — relevant experience for a game whose tension comes from a pursuer sweeping a level looking for you. Jake spent nearly a decade on animation projects, including work for Marvel and Warner Music. Both facts come from the Xbox Wire announcement.

Curve Games

The publisher, and the best available predictor of what this game is aiming to be. Curve named Human Fall Flat and Wobbly Life in the announcement as the kind of thing it is known for: physics-driven, friendly to groups, funny because of how bodies move rather than because of jokes.

Publishers do not shape a game the way a developer does, but they do pick what to sign, and a first game from a two-person studio getting a Gamescom slot and a day-one Game Pass deal is an unusual amount of backing.

What that tells you, and what it does not

It tells you the physics and the group comedy are the intended appeal rather than an accident, and that at least one person on the team has shipped a networked multiplayer game before, which is the hardest part of what they are attempting.

It does not tell you the game will be good, or that December is a date two people can hit. Nothing on this page is a prediction about either.

Studio details from: Xbox Wire announcement, 27 Aug 2026 — first-party.