The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult‑simulation. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pig‑mounted vehicles, brandishing machine guns before the screen fades to a massive, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles.
One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that emerged from a spontaneous suggestion by a team member’s child. As Joe Dietsch, CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recounts, "The kid asked, ‘Can there be a snake gun?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool, so within half an hour I built a gun that actually fires snakes. It blew his mind, and it stayed in the game." That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit of Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit followers—or teammates in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult.
It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a relatively tiny team to produce a high‑fidelity title that would traditionally require dozens of developers. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We set out to be disruptors, to prove you don’t need a hundred‑person staff to create a game of this scale. Everyone told us it was impossible, but we were determined to show otherwise." The founders’ backgrounds are steeped in Hollywood. 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 moved on to Star Citizen. Abbott’s film résumé also includes producing credits on movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us began as a personal experiment for Dietsch, who was tinkering with Unreal Engine after discovering it could be downloaded for free. "I’d loved games forever, but the barrier to actually building one felt huge. I started watching YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny prototypes," he explains.
The simple beginnings soon evolved into a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that merged his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, ran into technical roadblocks, and showed the result to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, a partner studio. The financial side of the venture was spearheaded by Dooma’s chief financial officer and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh.
Wendschuh’s career began in film as a producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games in the early 2000s, founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. In the 2010s he launched several tech enterprises, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (about $330 million USD).
After the sale, he bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire. However, a sudden call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into development.
After reviewing Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh was convinced and helped bring in Reid Schneider—former Warner Bros. Games VP—and Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran programmer from Ubisoft Montreal, as strategic advisors and technical leadership. Securing capital proved challenging amid a broader industry downturn. The team began pitching in summer 2023, initially struggling to attract interest.
With the help of CAA (Creative Artists Agency), they refined their pitch and returned to investors in 2024, eventually closing a seed round with Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both taking equity stakes in Wolf Haus. Wendschuh notes that CAA’s representation, which also covers titles like 007: First Light, and the presence of seasoned veterans such as Schneider and Chartrand, were instrumental in gaining credibility.
Despite the high‑profile backers, the studio remains deliberately lean: only 13 full‑time staff members work on Join Us. Dietsch emphasizes that this small‑team model is intentional, fostering an environment where every voice matters and each person can directly influence the creative direction. To make such an ambitious project feasible, the team invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "Any system we build has to be scalable and debuggable by a single developer," Dietsch says.
"We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and constructing the internal tools that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight as the world expanded." The equity funding from Kraftor and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance development, using the capital to build tools rather than relying on external contractors. "Our investors are aligned with our long‑term value creation, so they support us in building robust pipelines," Wendschuh explains.
This approach sometimes slows feature implementation, but it ensures the studio can achieve its vision with a tiny crew. When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—the team gave a clear answer: they do not use it for creative work. "We believe a game needs a human touch. Hand‑crafting the experience is why we get up in the morning," Dietsch asserts.
Wendschuh adds that while they may employ AI for mundane tasks like calendar management, none of it touches the artistic side of development. Interestingly, Krafton, which has publicly positioned itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in its creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The commitment to hand‑crafted content extends to the game’s massive six‑kilometre‑square map and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors. Dietsch stresses that this level of artisanal detail is essential, even for an indie‑scale project.
Comparing his film background to game development, Dietsch notes the immediacy of the latter. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring studio approval, casting, and a long production schedule. In games, an idea can be prototyped in a single morning, inserted into the engine, and instantly visualised. This rapid feedback loop fuels his enthusiasm for interactive media.
Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, short‑term bursts of activity followed by long periods of waiting for greenlights and distribution deals. By contrast, the video‑game landscape has fewer gatekeepers; a small team can release a polished product without needing A‑list talent or massive studio backing. This democratisation, he argues, makes successful game development more attainable than traditional filmmaking for independent creators. Both founders reflect on their childhood fascination with storytelling, whether through movies or games.
Dietsch recalls wanting to create either medium at age six, a decision that ultimately hinged on a Christmas gift—a camera. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, laying the foundation for his dual passion.
"Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience," he says. That shared creative impulse continues to drive Wolf Haus as they bring Join Us to life, proving that a small, focused team with the right tools and a clear vision can disrupt industry expectations without leaning on generative AI.