Four raccoons. One neighborhood. Everything that isn’t nailed down, and probably some things that are.
Dumpster Gang from two-person studio Coyote House Games (published by Curve Games) was revealed at the Gamescom 2026 Xbox Showcase on August 27. The physics-based co-op sandbox arrives in December 2026 on PC and Xbox, with Xbox PC Game Pass Day 1 support.
The concept communicates in three seconds of footage: raccoons doing raccoon things, except the raccoons are players, the chaos is physics-based, and up to four of them are doing it simultaneously in a shared environment. Dumpster-diving for junk, stealing snacks, climbing everything, triggering chain reactions that nobody planned, and evading an exterminator whose traps are distributed across the map — this is the premise, and it’s the correct premise for what a raccoon co-op game should be.
The Design Logic
Co-op sandbox comedy games live or die on whether the physics system generates emergent situations that are funnier than anything the developers scripted. Overcooked understood this: the kitchen’s specific layout creates coordination problems that produce comedy from the collision of players’ individual good intentions. Gang Beasts understood this: the wobbly physics make fights unpredictable in ways that create stories. Dumpster Gang appears to be building toward the same principle — Coyote House co-founder Jake Ellis specifically described the goal as creating “unexpected chain reactions” from player-environment interaction.
The raccoon as a protagonist is the correct choice for this design intent. Raccoons have a specific cultural status in the collective imagination: they are known thieves, excellent climbers, dumpster-focused, capable of causing remarkable amounts of chaos in small spaces, and fundamentally ridiculous in a way that makes their disasters charming rather than threatening. The game doesn’t need to explain why the raccoons are doing these things; it’s what raccoons do.
The physics-based sandbox structure — no fixed solutions, environmental interaction producing unpredictable results, players improvising together when plans fail — is the framework that raccoon behavior specifically benefits from. A raccoon that precisely executes a perfect heist isn’t as interesting as a raccoon that accidentally launches a piece of furniture through a window while trying to reach a snack.
The exterminator’s traps add the external pressure that gives the sandbox directionality. Without a threat, co-op sandboxes become creative toys; with a shared external threat that captures individual players who need rescuing, the coordination has stakes. Rescuing a trapped teammate while the exterminator is nearby is exactly the kind of situation that produces both genuine tension and subsequent comedy when executed with raccoon-level grace.
The Hideout Customization
Between sessions, players return to a hideout and decorate it with whatever junk they stole during their neighborhood run. This is the small attachment mechanic that gives repeated play sessions accumulating meaning — the hideout that looks different after 10 sessions than after 1, because the raccoons have been busy.
The hat system — different hats providing different abilities — adds a light character differentiation layer that changes the approach individual raccoons bring to a run. This doesn’t require deep strategic planning, which is correct: raccoons planning complex strategies is funny precisely because raccoons are not known for complex strategic execution.
The Studio Behind It
Samuel Malone’s role as Game Director on Midnight Ghost Hunt is the credential that positions Coyote House Games in the co-op multiplayer design space specifically. Midnight Ghost Hunt — a hidden-information co-op horror game where one team plays ghosts and another plays hunters — required precise multiplayer encounter design. The chaos-generation philosophy of Dumpster Gang is a different register than Midnight Ghost Hunt‘s strategic tension, but both require understanding what makes multiplayer moments memorable.
Jake Ellis’s 10 years of animation work at Marvel and Warner Music is a production-quality credential. A physics-based comedy co-op game’s visual expression — the raccoon body language, the environmental destruction effects, the specific way junk launches when hit — is where animation expertise directly contributes to whether the chaos reads as delightful rather than just messy.
The Xbox blog account of how the game got published — two developers walking into Curve Games’ office and pitching the idea directly — is the kind of origin story that fits the game’s aesthetic. A raccoon-themed co-op heist sandbox pitched in person to a publisher by its creators is consistent with the game’s energy.
The December Game Pass Context
Xbox PC Game Pass Day 1 for a small studio’s debut game significantly expands the audience that will encounter Dumpster Gang beyond what a traditional indie launch could reach. Co-op comedy games specifically benefit from reduced barriers to play: the more potential players who can try the game without purchase friction, the more likely the co-op groups that make the game most enjoyable to exist. A friend group where one member has Game Pass can all try Dumpster Gang together — the viral co-op discovery pattern.
Who This Is For
Strong fit for: co-op comedy enthusiasts who want physics-based chaos over mechanical depth; friend groups looking for a December 2026 session game to play over the holiday period; Untitled Goose Game fans who want the animal-causes-chaos premise scaled to four players; streaming groups whose audiences enjoy watching co-op disasters unfold in real time; Xbox Game Pass subscribers who want a new co-op option from day one.
Cautious fit for: players who want strategic depth alongside the sandbox chaos; anyone who needs established reviews before engaging; players who want precise physics over chaotic physics in their co-op games.
Less ideal for: solo players who want the experience without co-op; players seeking narrative or progression systems; anyone who finds animal-themed comedy games unappealing regardless of mechanics.
The Takeaway
Dumpster Gang is a two-person studio’s first game about four raccoons causing chaos in a neighborhood, built around physics-based emergent comedy and published through Curve Games with Xbox PC Game Pass Day 1 support. The raccoon premise is correct for the design intent, the developer backgrounds cover multiplayer design and animation quality; and the December release puts it in the holiday co-op window when friend groups have time to play.
December 2026. PC and Xbox. Game Pass Day 1. The neighborhood has snacks in it. The snacks are not secure. The exterminator cannot watch everywhere at once.
Information regarding the ‘ Dumpster Gang’
| item | detail |
|---|---|
| Developer | Coyote House Games (New two-person studio – Co-founders Samuel Malone, Jake Ellis) |
| Publisher | Curve Games (Cologne, Germany) |
| Genre | Cooperative Sandbox, Casual 3D Platformer, Physics-based Comedy |
| platform | PC (Steam, Microsoft Store), Xbox on PC |
| Release date | December 2026 |
| personnel | 1-4 Player Online Co-op |
| etc | Xbox PC Game Pass support from day one |
| Reactions/Evaluations | Unreleased with no user reviews; reported quickly by numerous international media outlets immediately after the Gamescom reveal |
| Steam Page | Shortcut |
