The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers ride pig‑mounted platforms, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and ultimately confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the most memorable, yet omitted, moments was the appearance of a "snake gun"—a weapon that literally fires serpents. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, explains how that quirky idea came to life. He recalls a conversation with a team member’s child who asked, "Can there be a snake gun?" Thanks to an in‑house tool that lets the team prototype weapons in under an hour, Dietsch was able to code a functional snake‑shooting firearm in roughly thirty minutes.
The child’s delight was genuine, and the weapon remains a permanent fixture in the final build. This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us.
The game is an open‑world sandbox survival experience set in a 1970s‑style cult, where players can recruit AI followers or invite friends to join their cause in cooperative play. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small, twelve‑person team to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑quality game with a dozen people, and they laughed." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to "punch above their weight" and deliver impressive results on shoestring budgets.
Wolf Haus’s founders bring deep Hollywood connections to the table. 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, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to the space‑sim Star Citizen.
Abbott also produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. These cinematic pedigrees informed the studio’s narrative sensibility and its willingness to experiment across media. The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch began tinkering with Unreal Engine after discovering it was free to download.
He admits he had no formal training in game development, learning the ropes from YouTube tutorials and creating a handful of tiny prototypes before deciding to tackle something larger. "I kept circling back to the idea of a doomsday cult simulator because it blended my love of survival games with grindhouse cinema," he says.
The initial proof‑of‑concept was built as a personal experiment, intended to push technical limits until the inevitable wall appeared. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and introduced it to Dooma, a partner studio that helped refine the concept. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, entered the picture after a varied career that spanned film production, screenwriting, and video‑game writing for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
He later founded several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After cashing out, Wendschuh bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire.
However, a chance call from his former Hollywood roommate, Michael Abbott, revived his interest in game development. Impressed by Dietsch’s early demo, Wendschuh left his retirement plan, recruited former Warner Bros.
Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor, and brought on Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. Securing financing proved to be the next hurdle. The team began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. Despite positive reactions to the game's concept, investors were cautious.
The studio enlisted Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to represent them, leveraging the agency’s connections to secure a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh notes that CAA’s representation—also handling titles like 007: First Light—combined with the credibility of veterans Schneider and Chartrand, helped convince investors to back the project.
Remarkably, the entire game is being built by only thirteen full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the team deliberately kept the roster small to preserve a collaborative atmosphere where "everyone has a voice and touches the creative process." To make such an ambitious scope feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single developer," Dietsch explains. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and constructing the underlying tools that would allow those ideas to scale across a six‑kilometre‑square open world without the project collapsing under its own weight.
The funding structure further enabled this tool‑centric approach. Krafton and Lifelike Capital took equity stakes in Wolf Haus, providing capital that was earmarked for development rather than external borrowing.
This equity model gave the investors a vested interest in the studio’s long‑term value, encouraging them to support the costly but strategic decision to build extensive in‑house tools. While the studio has begun to explore project‑finance options for marketing, the core development remains fully funded by the equity partners. In an industry increasingly obsessed with generative AI, Wolf Haus deliberately eschews such technologies for creative work.
Dietsch states plainly, "We don’t use any generative AI in the creative process. We believe a human touch is essential to game making." Wendschuh adds that the only AI tools they employ are mundane productivity aids, such as calendar scheduling and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton, which has publicly positioned itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required that Wolf Haus not rely on generative AI for game creation as a condition of their investment. This stance mirrors that of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑backed studio that publicly distanced itself from the parent company’s AI pivot.
The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s assets. The entire six‑kilometre‑square map is hand‑sculpted, and the 15,000 voice lines featured in Join Us were recorded by human actors, not AI‑generated voices. Dietsch stresses that preserving this level of artisanal craftsmanship was a core principle, even for a modest indie operation. Comparing his experiences in film and games, Dietsch highlights the immediacy of interactive media.
In film, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring scripts, green‑lights, and massive coordination before any footage is shot. By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours: "You can have an idea in the morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly," he says. Wendschuh observes that filmmaking is heavily front‑loaded, with intense pre‑production phases involving securing high‑profile talent to obtain studio backing.
While anyone can shoot a low‑budget movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without marquee names or distribution is rare. Game development, however, faces fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without needing A‑list actors or directors. Both mediums, though, share a common creative drive: storytelling and evoking emotion. Dietsch reflects on his childhood, recalling a coin‑toss decision between making movies or games, ultimately shaped by receiving a camera for Christmas and learning to program on a TI‑83 calculator.
"Whether you’re making a movie or a game, you’re trying to give someone an experience, tell a story, and engage them," he concludes, underscoring the timeless nature of narrative creation across platforms.