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 preview, robed cultists rode on pigs, brandished machine guns, and the sequence culminated in a nightmarish vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What the audience didn’t see was the infamous snake‑gun, a 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 son 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 it on the spot.
The kid was thrilled, and the snake gun stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote encapsulates 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. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, explains the team’s philosophy: "We wanted to be disruptors.
We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred developers; twelve can do the job.’ Most people thought we were crazy, but we had a track record of punching well above our weight." The team’s confidence stems from a background in independent filmmaking, where they learned to achieve cinematic ambition on shoestring budgets. Abbott notes, "We come from indie film, so we’re accustomed to making big things with limited resources." After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio. The founders’ Hollywood credentials run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who also co‑founded Wolf Haus.
Together they 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 originally 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 from Dietsch’s experimentation with Unreal Engine. "Unreal Engine was free to download, and I’d always loved games, but the barrier to creating something felt huge," he explains. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few small prototypes, and eventually settled on the idea of a doomsday cult simulator—a mash‑up of survival mechanics and grindhouse cinema that merged his passions for movies and games into a single intellectual property. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming it would eventually hit a technical wall.
When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and presented it to Dooma, a venture that would later become part of the studio’s funding pipeline. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s, contributing writing to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
He later founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry.
"I was looking at a game Joe had made, 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 joined as 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.
Pitching began in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. "People liked what we were building, but the timing was tough," Dietsch admits.
The studio enlisted the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to represent them, re‑pitching in 2024 until Lifelike Capital and Krafton provided a seed round. Wendschuh credits CAA’s connections—such as their representation of titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for smoothing the path.
Despite the high ambitions, Join Us is being created by just 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes the importance of a small, collaborative environment: "Everyone has a voice, everyone touches the creative side, and the game feels like a product of a tightly knit group." To make a large‑scale open world feasible for such a lean crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on. "Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," he explains. The first year of development was split between ideation and building the internal tools that would later allow the game’s features to spread across a six‑kilometre‑square map without collapsing under its own weight.
The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect those tools. "Krafton and Lifelike invested directly into the studio, and we used those funds to finance the entire development," says Wendschuh. "We’re now only adding a small amount of project finance for marketing. The game itself was built entirely with their capital." One of the most striking aspects of Wolf Haus’s approach is its staunch avoidance of generative AI in the creative process.
When asked about AI usage, Dietsch gave a concise answer: "We don’t use any generative AI. The human touch is essential to us. Turning development over to an algorithm would defeat the purpose of why we love making games." Wendschuh adds that the studio only uses AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, never for artistic decisions. Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to refrain from using generative AI for creative work.
This mirrors the stance of Krafton‑owned Neon Giant, which publicly declared it would not adopt the parent company’s AI pivot. Both studios stress respect for creative professionals and fear that AI could displace voice actors and artists.
Dietsch confirms that Join Us’s six‑kilometre‑square world is handcrafted, and its 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human talent—a point of pride for the tiny indie team. Dietsch reflects on the differences between film and game development. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and studio green‑lights.
In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours, allowing immediate iteration: "You can have an idea in the morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly. That immediacy is exhilarating." Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense pre‑production phases focused on securing high‑profile talent to satisfy studio demands. While anyone can shoot a low‑budget movie with a backyard camera, achieving commercial success without marquee names or distribution is rare.
Game development, however, faces fewer gatekeepers; a small team can release a polished product without A‑list actors or directors, dramatically increasing the odds of success. Both founders agree that the core creative impulse remains the same across mediums: storytelling and immersive experiences. "When I was six, I wanted to make games or movies—it boiled down to a coin toss and maybe getting a camera for Christmas," Dietsch says. "I learned to program on a TI‑83, so I’ve always loved both.
Whether it’s a film or a game, you’re trying to give someone an experience, tell a story, and engage them. That doesn’t change." In summary, Wolf Haus’s journey illustrates how a small, Hollywood‑infused team leveraged bespoke tools, strategic funding, and a firm commitment to human‑crafted content to build an ambitious open‑world cult simulator without relying on generative AI. Their story underscores the power of interdisciplinary expertise, lean development, and the belief that a dozen passionate creators can achieve what larger studios deem impossible.