The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles looming on the horizon. What the audience didn’t see was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that has become something of a legend among fans. According to Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the idea sprang from an unexpected source.
"One of the team members’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new firearm in under half an hour, so I built it on the fly. The kid was thrilled, and the weapon made it into the final build," Dietsch recounts. That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. The game’s off‑the‑wall design is matched by the studio’s unconventional development philosophy.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, says the team set out to be "disruptors" from day one. "We told everyone we could build a AAA‑level experience with just twelve people.
Most people laughed and said it was impossible," he explains. Their confidence stems from a background in low‑budget, high‑impact indie filmmaking, where they learned to punch far above their financial weight. After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving them the runway to finish the project.
The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor‑director Mel Gibson, and the two later co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie features Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott is the son of veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, a production company founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen universe.
Abbott’s film résumé includes producing the Jamie Foxx‑led thriller Fight for ’84. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a massive barrier to actually creating something," he says. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, eventually crafting a few small prototypes before deciding to tackle something far more ambitious—a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
The proof‑of‑concept was raw but promising, and Dietsch showed it to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, the studio that would later become a strategic partner. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had a career that straddled film and games. He began as a producer and screenwriter before founding Sekretagent Productions, a writing house that contributed narrative content to titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. In the 2010s he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, planning to retire and enjoy a quiet life. Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, a phone call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry. "I was looking at Joe’s demo and it blew my mind. It convinced me to come out of retirement," Wendschuh says.
He introduced the project to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games vice‑president who now leads Raccoon Logic, the creators of Journey to the Savage Planet.
Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing—a daunting task during the industry downturn of 2023‑24.
The studio partnered with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, which helped refine their pitch and secure meetings throughout 2024. Their perseverance paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton each took an equity stake, providing the seed money needed to continue development. Wendschuh notes that CAA’s representation, which also covers titles like 007: First Light, added credibility, while veteran advisors such as Schneider and Chartrand reinforced confidence among investors.
Despite the high‑profile backing, Wolf Haus has remained a lean operation, employing only thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional: "We wanted a studio where everyone has a voice, where each person can touch the creative process, and where the final product truly feels like the work of a tight‑knit group." To make a large‑scale open world feasible with such a limited headcount, the team invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset.
"Any system in the game has to be scalable and debuggable by a single developer," Dietsch explains. "We built a robust toolkit early on so that as the world expanded, the project wouldn’t collapse under its own weight." The funding model also gave the studio the luxury of time to perfect those tools. Because Krafton and Lifelike are equity partners, their capital has been used to self‑fund the game’s development.
"We’re now adding a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development has been entirely covered by our investors," says Wendschuh. This equity‑first approach aligns the investors’ interests with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging Wolf Haus to continue building reusable tools rather than cutting corners. When asked about the role of generative AI—a hot topic in game development—both Dietsch and Wendschuh are unequivocal: the studio does not employ AI for creative tasks. "We believe a game needs a human touch.
Using an AI to generate assets would undermine why we get up in the morning to make games," Dietsch says. Wendschuh adds that while they may use AI for administrative chores like calendar management, it never touches the artistic side of production. Interestingly, Krafton, which has publicly positioned itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to refrain from using generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio.
The six‑kilometre‑square map was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. Dietsch stresses that this level of manual craftsmanship is a point of pride, especially for an indie studio. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and game creation. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent to secure studio backing.
By contrast, a game idea can be prototyped within hours and tested directly in the engine. "You can have a concept in the morning, drop it into Unreal, and see it instantly.
That immediacy is exhilarating," he says. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, costly set‑ups that depend on securing a few marquee names. While anyone can shoot a video with a backyard camera, the odds of that footage becoming a successful commercial film are slim without established distribution channels.
Games, however, face fewer gatekeepers; a small team can release a polished product directly to players without needing A‑list actors or directors. Both founders agree that the core creative impulse is the same across mediums: to tell a story, craft an experience, and engage an audience.
Dietsch recalls that as a child he wanted to make either movies or games, and a simple Christmas gift—a camera—set him on that path. He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, blending his love of technology with narrative.
"Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience and a story. The tools change, but the purpose stays the same," he concludes.