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, fire machine guns, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that originated from an off‑hand suggestion by a team member’s son. "He asked, ‘Can we have a snake gun?’" recalls Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games.
"We had a modular gun system, so in about thirty minutes I built a weapon that actually fires snakes. The kid was thrilled, and the gun stayed in the game." That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire.
It also illustrates the studio’s tech‑first philosophy, which has enabled a small group of developers to produce a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up succinctly: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred people; twelve is enough.’ Most people laughed, thinking it was impossible." The team’s confidence stems from a history of doing big things on shoestring budgets.
"We come from indie film backgrounds, so we’re used to punching well above our weight," Abbott explains. After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—and the two 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 later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us was born when Dietsch started tinkering with Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge. I started watching YouTube tutorials and experimenting," he says.
Despite lacking formal training, he built a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that merged survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He created a proof‑of‑concept demo and showed it to Abbott, who then introduced it to Dooma. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games in the early 2000s, providing writing for 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 C$430 million. After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into development.
Wendschuh presented the demo to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic (the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet).
Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With the core team in place, the next hurdle was financing—a daunting task amid a market downturn in 2023. After initial outreach, the studio signed with CAA in Los Angeles, re‑pitched in 2024, and finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
According to Wendschuh, CAA’s representation—also handling titles like 007: First Light—was instrumental, as was the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand. "My agent Derek Douglas, who represented me during my twelve‑year game‑making career, also heads the video‑game department at William Morris," Wendschuh notes.
What truly sets Join Us apart is the way it’s being built: a 13‑person full‑time team that maintains a small‑studio culture where every voice matters. Dietsch explains that early development focused heavily on tool creation. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person. We invested a lot of time in a robust toolkit so that as the open world expands, the project doesn’t collapse under its own weight." He adds that roughly half of the first year was spent simultaneously designing gameplay and engineering the tools that would make that gameplay possible—tools that will also serve future projects.
The funding structure gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s equity investment financed the entire development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. "Equity partners want the studio to increase its enterprise value, so they support our tool‑heavy approach," says Wendschuh. "Whenever we hit a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a custom tool.
It may slow us down short‑term, but it enables a tiny team to deliver a game of this scope." Despite the industry’s hype around generative AI, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids it in creative production. "We believe a human touch is essential. Turning development over to an AI would defeat why we get up in the morning," Dietsch says. Wendschuh concedes that the team uses AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, but not for any artistic work.
Interestingly, Krafton—marketed as an "AI‑first" company—insisted that Wolf Haus not employ generative AI for game creation, echoing similar stances from other Krafton‑owned studios. The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content is evident: the six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely hand‑built, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors. "That mattered to us, even as a small indie," Wendschuh emphasizes. Dietsch also highlights the immediacy of game development compared with film.
In cinema, an idea can take years to reach the set, requiring approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent. In games, an idea can be prototyped in a morning, placed into the engine, and iterated on instantly.
"You can see it, touch it, and iterate right away," he says, finding the speed exhilarating. Wendschuh points out that film production is front‑loaded with intense, high‑stakes set work and heavy reliance on star power to secure financing.
While anyone can shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without big names or distribution is rare. By contrast, the game industry has fewer gatekeepers, allowing a small team to reach a global audience without A‑list actors or directors. Both men agree that, at their core, filmmaking and game making share a common creative impulse: storytelling and delivering an experience. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games; it came down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera," Dietsch reflects.
"Whether it’s a film or a game, you’re trying to tell a story and engage the audience. That fundamental goal hasn’t changed."