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 platforms, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates in a nightmarish vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the edit, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—was the infamous snake gun.
"One of the developer’s kids suggested a snake‑shooter," Dietsch recalls. "We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a weapon in minutes, so I built a gun that fires snakes in about half an hour.
The kid went nuts, and the weapon stayed in the final build." That anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to their retro‑70s‑style cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a tiny team to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require dozens of developers. "We set out to be disruptors," says Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer. "We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred people; twelve will do.’ Most people laughed and said it was impossible." The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets.
Abbott, whose father is veteran Hollywood makeup artist Larry Abbott, grew up around film production and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the company Chris Roberts founded before moving on to Star Citizen. He later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Dietsch, meanwhile, studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—and the two co‑wrote and co‑directed indie features like Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Their shared background in indie cinema taught them to "punch above their weight" and to rely on ingenuity rather than large crews.
Wolf Haus secured its financing after 80 pitches, eventually landing equity investments from Kraftor and Lifelike Capital. Both investors took a stake in the studio, giving the developers the runway to build Join Us without resorting to external loans or massive publisher advances. The game’s genesis can be traced back to Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge," he explains. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and then fixated on a doomsday cult simulator—a concept that married his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He created a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the duo began to flesh out a full‑scale vision. Joining them was Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director.
Wendschuh’s career began in film as a producer and screenwriter before he transitioned to video 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. He later built several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After cashing out, he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
A sudden call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into development when he saw a demo of Join Us and was instantly captivated. Wendschuh then recruited Reid Schneider—former Warner Bros. Games VP and current head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor. Schneider brought on Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With this core group in place, the studio turned its attention to funding. Pitching began in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. Despite the challenging climate, the team’s unique pedigree and compelling demo attracted interest.
After a second round of pitches in 2024, Lifelike Capital and Krafton provided the seed round that finally green‑lit the project. The partnership with CAA—Creative Artists Agency—proved instrumental. Derek Douglas, Wolf Haus’s agent at CAA, had previously represented Wendschuh during his twelve‑year game‑development career and had headed the video‑game division at William Morris.
This connection, combined with the credibility of veterans like Schneider and Chartrand, helped the studio navigate a tough financing environment. What truly sets Join Us apart is the way it is being built: a full‑scale, open‑world experience developed by just thirteen full‑time staff members. "From day one we knew the scope of what we wanted to achieve," says Dietsch, "but we also wanted to keep the team small enough that everyone’s voice mattered and everyone could touch the creative core." To make such an ambitious project feasible with a lean crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling early in development. "Any system in the game has to be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch notes.
The studio built a robust toolkit that allowed individual developers to iterate quickly and keep the project from collapsing under its own complexity as the open world expanded. This tool‑first approach not only accelerated Join Us but also laid the groundwork for future titles. Funding from Kraftor and Lifelike was structured as equity, meaning the money was used directly to finance development rather than being repaid as a loan.
This model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect its tools and iterate without the pressure of immediate returns. "Equity partners are incentivized to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh explains. "Whenever we hit a problem we don’t know how to solve, we build a tool for it. It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a small team to deliver a game of this magnitude." When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in the industry—both Dietsch and Wendschuh are unequivocal: the studio does not rely on AI for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential," Dietsch says. "We have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management, but nothing that influences design, art, or narrative." Interestingly, Kraftor, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline. This mirrors a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Kraftor‑backed studio, which publicly distanced itself from the parent’s AI pivot.
Wolf Haus’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s six‑kilometre‑square map—entirely built by hand—and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors. "Even as a tiny indie, we felt it was vital to keep the experience human," Wendschuh adds. Dietsch highlights the immediacy of game development compared with film.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and extensive pre‑production. In contrast, a concept can be prototyped in a game engine within hours, allowing instant feedback and rapid iteration. This speed fuels the team’s creativity and keeps the development process vibrant. Wendschuh points out that film production is heavily front‑loaded: securing a high‑profile director or star is often the gatekeeper to green‑lighting a project.
While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a camera, breaking through without established names is rare. Game development, however, has fewer gatekeepers; a small studio can reach a global audience without A‑list talent, making the medium more accessible for innovators.
Both founders agree that, regardless of medium, the core drive is storytelling and delivering an experience that resonates with players or viewers. "When I was six, I wanted to make either games or movies—it boiled down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas," Dietsch reflects. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re crafting a narrative, engaging an audience, and that creative impulse remains the same."