The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator. In the preview, robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles looming on the horizon. One element that didn’t make the final cut of the showcase was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that has become a hallmark of the game’s off‑beat charm.
Joe Dietsch, the chief executive officer and creative director at Wolf Haus Games, explains the origin of that weapon: “One of our team members’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had built a flexible gun‑creation tool that could be scaled in minutes, so I whipped up a prototype in about half an hour. The kid was thrilled, and the snake gun stayed in the game.” This anecdote captures the spirit of Join Us – a sandbox survival title set in an open‑world where players can recruit followers or invite friends to join a 1970s‑style cult. The game’s chaotic, improvisational design is a direct reflection of the studio’s technology‑first mindset.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, emphasizes that the studio set out to be “disruptors.” He recalls the team’s early mantra: “We told everyone we could build a AAA‑quality experience with just twelve people. Most people laughed and said it was impossible.” Their confidence stems from a background in low‑budget indie filmmaking, where they learned to “punch above their weight.” After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders bring deep Hollywood connections to the table.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor 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 his transition to the Star Citizen project. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us emerged from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
“I discovered Unreal was free to download and started tinkering after watching YouTube tutorials,” he says. Though he had no formal training, he managed to craft a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the two presented it to Dooma, a partner that helped push the project forward. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s.
He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative services for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. In the 2010s he launched several tech ventures, including Ebbu, a cannabis‑formulation company that sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada and planned a quiet retirement. Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back: “Joe showed me a game prototype that completely blew my mind, and I couldn’t stay retired.” Wendschuh then introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former vice‑president 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 this core team in place, the next hurdle was financing – a daunting task during the industry downturn of 2023‑2024. The studio partnered with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for representation, leveraging the agency’s connections to secure meetings with investors. “People liked what we were building, but the market was tough,” Dietsch notes. After persistent pitching, Lifelike Capital and Krafton agreed to a seed round, providing the capital needed to continue development.
Wolf Haus’s small‑team philosophy is central to its identity. With only 13 full‑time staff members, the studio aims to keep every voice heard and every employee involved in creative decisions. To make a large, high‑fidelity world feasible with such a lean crew, they invested heavily in internal tooling from day one.
“Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch explains. “We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and building the tools that would let a small team expand the world without the project collapsing under its own weight.” The equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑fund the development, with additional project finance earmarked for marketing. This structure aligns investors’ interests with the studio’s long‑term value creation.
“Our backers want us to build robust tools, even if that slows immediate progress, because those tools enable us to deliver ambitious experiences with a tiny team,” Wendschuh adds. When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not rely on it for creative work. “We believe a human touch is essential in game making,” says Dietsch.
“We have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management, but none of it touches the art, design, or narrative.” Krafton, despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map of Join Us is entirely hand‑sculpted, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors rather than AI‑generated speech.
“That level of human involvement matters to us, even as an indie,” Wendschuh stresses. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between filmmaking and game development.
In film, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and massive budgets before a director sees it on set. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours: “You can have an idea at breakfast, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly. That immediacy is exhilarating.” Wendschuh points out that traditional Hollywood projects are front‑loaded with high‑profile talent and studio gatekeepers, making it difficult for newcomers to break in. By contrast, the video‑game industry has far fewer barriers; a small team can launch a successful product without A‑list actors or directors.
“You don’t need a famous star to sell a game,” he says, “and that democratization is why we’re excited to keep pushing boundaries.” Both founders agree that, regardless of medium, the core mission remains the same: to craft an experience that tells a story and engages the audience. “When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games.
It boiled down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera,” Dietsch recalls. “Whether it’s film or interactive media, we’re ultimately trying to immerse people in a narrative and make them feel something.
The tools and formats may change, but the creative impulse stays constant."