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 zip around on pig‑mounted vehicles, unleash a hail of machine‑gun fire, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the most memorable, albeit unseen, moments was the inclusion of a "snake gun"—a whimsical weapon that shoots serpents.
According to Joe Dietsch, the game’s CEO and creative director at Wolf Haus Games, the idea came from a team member’s child who asked, "Can there be a snake gun?" Leveraging an in‑house tool that allowed rapid weapon prototyping, Dietsch spent roughly thirty minutes constructing the serpent‑shooting firearm, delighting the youngster and cementing the weapon’s place in the final product. That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us. The title is an open‑world sandbox survival experience set in a 1970s‑style cult, where players can recruit AI followers or invite friends into co‑op sessions to expand their eerie congregation. The game’s design philosophy mirrors the studio’s broader approach: a technology‑first mindset that lets a tiny crew deliver a high‑fidelity experience traditionally reserved for far larger teams.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up succinctly: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑level game with just twelve people, and they laughed." Wolf Haus’s founders are steeped in Hollywood tradition. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University, where he met Louie Gibson—son of famed actor Mel Gibson—and the two later co‑wrote and co‑directed indie features such as Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott hails from a lineage of makeup artistry; his father, Larry Abbott, is a veteran Hollywood makeup artist.
Abbott also helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen universe, and later produced films like Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. This cinematic background gave the team a knack for punching well above their weight, a skill they transferred to game development. The genesis of Join Us traces back to Dietsch’s early experiments with Unreal Engine.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d been a gamer forever, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge," he recalls. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, eventually producing a few modest prototypes. The concept that persisted was a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—essentially a love letter to the movies and games he adored.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, anticipating inevitable technical roadblocks. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and introduced it to Dooma, a partner who helped refine the vision.
Key to the studio’s evolution was Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh. Wendschuh began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games in the early 2000s, founding Sekretagent Productions, which contributed writing to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After a brief retirement—during which he purchased a remote island restaurant in Canada—Wendschuh received an unexpected call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, about a video‑game project. Intrigued, he reviewed Dietsch’s demo and was instantly captivated, prompting his return to the industry.
Wendschuh then recruited Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games vice‑president now heading Raccoon Logic, as a strategic advisor, and brought on Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With this core team in place, Wolf Haus began a rigorous fundraising campaign in the summer of 2023, navigating a market downturn that made capital scarce.
Initial pitches generated interest but no commitments; the team subsequently partnered with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles, leveraging the agency’s clout to secure a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Both investors took equity stakes, allowing the studio to self‑fund development while retaining creative control. The partnership with CAA proved instrumental.
Derek Douglas, Wolf Haus’s agent at CAA, had previously represented Wendschuh during his twelve‑year tenure in game development and had headed the video‑game department at William Morris. This network, combined with the expertise of Schneider and Chartrand, helped the studio overcome the skepticism that often greets a twelve‑person team aiming for a large‑scale open‑world title. Wolf Haus’s development pipeline is built around robust, scalable tools. Dietsch explains that any system in the game must be operable and debuggable by a single developer, necessitating a comprehensive toolkit.
The first year of production was split evenly between ideation and tool creation, ensuring that as the game’s world expanded, the underlying architecture wouldn’t buckle under its own complexity. This tooling philosophy extends beyond Join Us; the studio envisions reusing the same systems for future projects, effectively amortizing the initial investment. Funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed the team to focus on perfecting these tools without the pressure of immediate revenue. The investors’ equity stakes align their interests with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging Wolf Haus to continue building internal solutions rather than outsourcing or cutting corners.
While the studio has begun to explore project finance for marketing purposes, the core development remains entirely financed by the equity partners. In an industry increasingly enamored with generative AI, Wolf Haus has deliberately steered clear of such technologies for creative work. Dietsch states unequivocally, "We don’t use any generative AI in the creative process. The human touch is essential to us." Wendschuh adds that the studio only employs AI for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Interestingly, Krafton, which has branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid AI‑generated content as a condition of their investment, mirroring a broader industry hesitation to let AI replace voice actors, artists, or narrative designers. Every line of dialogue in Join Us—over 15,000 in total—was recorded by human voice talent, and the six‑kilometre‑square map was handcrafted, underscoring the studio’s commitment to artisanal craftsmanship. This dedication contrasts sharply with the film world, where Dietsch notes that projects often spend years in pre‑production, securing A‑list talent before ever seeing a camera roll.
In games, ideas can be prototyped within hours, offering immediate feedback and iteration. "You can have an idea in the morning and see it in the engine by afternoon," he says, highlighting the immediacy that attracted him to interactive media.
Wendschuh observes that while film production is heavily front‑loaded—requiring massive coordination to get a handful of high‑profile names on board—game development faces fewer gatekeepers. Anyone can publish a game without needing a star director or celebrity endorsement, dramatically increasing the odds of success for small, independent teams. Both founders trace their passion back to childhood. Dietsch recalls wanting to make either movies or games at age six, a decision that hinged on whether he received a camera for Christmas.
He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, laying the groundwork for a career that now bridges storytelling across mediums. He believes the core creative impulse—crafting experiences, telling stories, and engaging audiences—remains the same whether the canvas is a silver screen or a virtual world.
Join Us therefore stands as a testament to what a small, tightly knit team can achieve when it combines Hollywood storytelling expertise, savvy entrepreneurial experience, and a relentless focus on building the right tools. By rejecting generative AI in favor of human‑driven creativity, securing supportive equity partners, and leveraging a deep well of film industry know‑how, Wolf Haus has managed to produce a sprawling, high‑quality cult simulator with just a dozen full‑time staff—a true disruption of conventional game development assumptions.