The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, giving gamers a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers ride on pigs while firing machine guns, and the sequence culminates with a massive, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles looming on the horizon. One element that didn’t make the final edit was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that has become a hallmark of the game.
According to Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the idea for the snake‑shooting firearm came from a child’s imagination. "One of our team member’s son asked, ‘What would a snake gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that lets us scale weapons in minutes, so I threw together a snake‑shooting gun in about thirty seconds.
The kid went wild, and we kept it in the final build," Dietsch recalls. This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or fellow players in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire. What makes the project truly remarkable is 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 set out to be disruptors. We told ourselves we could build a AAA‑level game with just twelve people. Everyone else thought we were crazy, but we had a track record of punching above our weight in indie film, so we knew it was possible." The journey to funding was long and arduous.
After roughly eighty pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity investment from both Krafton and Lifelike Capital. Both investors took a stake in the studio, providing the financial runway needed to bring Join Us to life. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded Wolf Haus and co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie films 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 shift to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us began as a side project for Dietsch while he was experimenting with Unreal Engine. "Unreal Engine was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to actually making one," he says. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, creating a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision. The core concept—a doomsday cult simulator that blends survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—kept resurfacing in his mind.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo and showed it to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, a production partner. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, entered the picture after a career that spanned film production, screenwriting, and video‑game writing. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative services for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million (about $330 million USD).
After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. But a call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into development when he saw a demo of Join Us and was blown away. Wendschuh recruited Reid Schneider, a former vice‑president at Warner Bros.
Games and now head of Raccoon Logic (the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet), as a strategic advisor. Schneider brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, formerly a programmer at Ubisoft Montreal, to serve as chief technology officer.
With this core team in place, Wolf Haus turned its attention to financing during a market downturn in the summer of 2023. Initial outreach yielded interest, but the team ultimately signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, which helped them secure seed funding from Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024.
Abbott notes that CAA’s representation—alongside titles like 007: First Light—provided credibility, while veteran advisors such as Schneider and Chartrand added industry clout. "My agent Derek Douglas, who also represented me when I was making games for twelve years, was instrumental," says Wendschuh. "He previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris." Despite the high‑profile backing, Join Us remains a boutique effort: only thirteen full‑time staff members are working on it. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team approach is intentional: "We wanted a studio where everyone has a voice, where every person can touch the creative direction, and where the final product feels like it was made by a tightly knit group." To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible with a lean crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from day one.
"Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. The studio spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay concepts and constructing the underlying toolset, ensuring that as features expanded across a six‑kilometre‑square map, the project wouldn’t collapse under its own weight.
The funding model also gave the team breathing room to perfect these tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s equity stakes meant the studio could self‑fund development, using the capital solely for production rather than relying on external loans.
"Equity investors are motivated to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support us in building extensive tooling," says Wendschuh. "Whenever we encounter a problem we can’t solve with existing assets, we build a new tool. It may slow us down short‑term, but it enables a small team to achieve something that would otherwise require dozens of engineers." When asked about the role of generative AI—a hot topic in game development—Dietsch gave a blunt answer: the studio does not use it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Turning development over to an AI would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," he says. Wendschuh adds that the only AI tools they employ are for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting, not for art, design, or narrative. Krafton, which has recently branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, actually discouraged Wolf Haus from employing generative AI in the creative pipeline.
The investor wanted assurance that the studio’s output would be wholly human‑crafted, a stance echoed by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant, which publicly distanced itself from the parent company’s AI push. The team’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely hand‑modeled, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not AI‑generated voices.
"Even as a tiny indie, we felt it was crucial to preserve that human element," says Dietsch. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and games. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring scripts, green‑lights, and the coordination of high‑profile talent before a camera ever rolls.
In contrast, game development offers immediacy: an idea can be prototyped in a few hours, placed into the engine, and instantly visualised. "You can have a concept in the morning and see it in the engine by afternoon," he says, describing the exhilarating feedback loop that keeps him motivated. Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, high‑stakes set work that often depends on securing a few marquee names to attract studio financing.
While anyone can shoot a low‑budget film with a backyard camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. Game development, however, has fewer gatekeepers; a small team can release a polished product directly to digital storefronts without needing A‑list actors or directors. Both mediums share a core creative impulse: the desire to craft experiences, tell stories, and engage audiences. Dietsch recalls his childhood fascination with both film and games, a love that began with a camera under the Christmas tree and programming on a TI‑83 calculator.
"Whether you’re making a movie or a game, you’re delivering an experience and a narrative. That fundamental goal doesn’t change," he concludes. Join Us thus stands as a testament to what a motivated, technically savvy, and creatively driven team can accomplish without relying on massive staff counts or generative‑AI shortcuts. By leveraging deep Hollywood connections, strategic funding, and a relentless focus on bespoke tools, Wolf Haus is poised to deliver a distinctive cult‑simulator that blends satire, survival, and surreal horror—all crafted by a handful of passionate developers.