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 pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and ultimately confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s off‑hand suggestion. "One of our team member’s sons asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new weapon in about thirty minutes, so I built one that literally fires snakes.
The kid went nuts, and the gun stayed in the game," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult.
It also illustrates Wolf Haus’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity experience that would traditionally require a much larger staff. "We set out to be disruptors," says Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer. "We told ourselves, ‘We don’t need a hundred people; twelve can do the job.’ Everyone else thought we were crazy." The team’s confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to achieve big results on shoestring budgets. After 80 pitch meetings, they finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus.
The founders’ Hollywood credentials run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—who co‑founded Wolf Haus and 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 his transition to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us originated when Dietsch began tinkering with Unreal Engine. "I discovered Unreal was free to download and started learning from YouTube tutorials.
I’d loved games for years, but the barrier to actually creating one felt huge. Unreal lowered that gate," he explains. Despite lacking formal training, Dietsch produced a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that merged survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept, expecting to hit technical roadblocks, but the demo impressed Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before shifting to games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative services for 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 firm Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million (≈$330 million USD).
After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire. Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into game development. "I was looking at the video Joe sent me, and it blew my mind. It convinced me to come out of retirement," Wendschuh says.
He introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, who became a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing—a difficult task given the industry downturn of 2023‑24.
After initial outreach, the studio partnered with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, re‑pitched the game in 2024, and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh credits CAA’s representation—alongside titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of veteran advisors for smoothing the path. Even with a modest headcount of 13 full‑time staff, Wolf Haus has managed to keep the development process collaborative. "Everyone has a voice, everyone touches the creative, and the game feels like it was made by a tight‑knit group," says Dietsch.
A crucial factor in achieving such scope with a small crew is the heavy investment in custom tooling. "Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains.
The first year of development was split between designing gameplay concepts and building the internal tools that would later allow those concepts to scale across an open‑world map without collapsing under their own weight. The equity funding model gave the studio the runway to perfect those tools.
"Krafton and Lifelike’s investment funds the game directly, making it essentially self‑funded. We’ve only taken on modest project finance for marketing," Wendschuh notes. "Because our investors own equity, they’re motivated to see the studio’s enterprise value rise, which encourages us to keep building robust tools even if it slows short‑term progress." When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—Dietsch is unequivocal: the studio does not rely on AI for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using an AI to generate content would defeat why we love making games in the first place," he says. Wendschuh adds that while they may use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management, it never touches the artistic side of development.
Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, also insisted Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring the stance of Krafton‑owned Neon Giant, which publicly distanced itself from the AI pivot. The team’s commitment to handcrafted content is evident: the six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is entirely hand‑built, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors. "Even as a tiny indie, we felt it was vital to keep everything human‑made," Dietsch emphasizes.
Dietsch appreciates the immediacy games offer compared with film. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, inserted into the engine, and instantly visualised. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with extensive pre‑production negotiations to secure A‑list directors or actors, whereas games face fewer gatekeepers.
"You don’t need a star actor or director to make a successful game," he says. Both mediums, however, share a core creative impulse: storytelling and immersive experience. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games.
It came down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera. I learned programming on a TI‑83, so the love for both has always been there.
Whether it’s film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience—that never changes."