The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers charge on pig‑back, wielding machine guns, before the screen cuts to a massive, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles.
What didn’t make it into the public preview was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that originated from a spontaneous idea by a team member’s child. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recounts the moment: “One of the developers’ kids asked, ‘Can there be a snake‑shooting gun?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool, so within half an hour I built a gun that fires snakes. He was blown away, and we kept it 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 invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a tiny team to produce a high‑fidelity, large‑scale experience.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: “We set out to be disruptors. Everyone told us you need a hundred‑person studio to pull this off, but we believed twelve could do it.” The team’s confidence wasn’t unfounded.
Their backgrounds in low‑budget indie filmmaking taught them to punch well above their weight. “We grew up making indie films, so we’re accustomed to doing big things with limited resources,” Abbott explains.
After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving Wolf Haus the runway it needed. 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 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 originally founded by Chris Roberts before his move to Star Citizen.
Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us was born from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. “I discovered Unreal was free to download and started tinkering after watching countless YouTube tutorials,” he says.
Though he had never built a game before, he managed to create a few small prototypes before committing to a larger vision. The concept— a doomsday cult simulator that blends survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics—kept resurfacing because it married his love for movies and games into a single intellectual property. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo and showed it to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, a production partner.
Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had a career that spanned film production, screenwriting, and video‑game writing. He contributed to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins through his company Sekretagent Productions. In the 2010s he founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire.
Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, an old roommate—Michael Abbott—called him out of the blue about a friend’s video‑game project. Curious, Wendschuh watched the early demo, was “blown away,” and decided to come out of retirement. He brought the project to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros.
Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet. Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing, a daunting task given the industry’s downturn in mid‑2023.
“People liked what we were building, but the market was tough,” Dietsch notes. The studio engaged CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles, refined their pitch, and continued courting investors into 2024. Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed a seed round, providing the capital needed to continue development.
Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—whose roster includes titles like 007: First Light—and the presence of seasoned veterans such as Schneider and Chartrand for smoothing the fundraising process. "My longtime agent Derek Douglas, who once led the video‑game division at William Morris, also represented us at CAA," he adds. Despite the high‑profile backing, Join Us is being built by just 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team culture is intentional: “Everyone has a voice, everyone touches the creative side, and the game feels like a product of a tightly knit group.” To make such an ambitious open‑world possible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling early on.
“If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single developer,” 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 model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect these tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s investment was used directly to finance development, with the studio later taking on modest project‑finance for marketing.
"Equity partners want the studio to increase its enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh says. "Whenever we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we simply build a tool for it. It may slow us down short‑term, but it enables us to deliver a game of this scope with a tiny crew." When asked about the role of generative AI, Dietsch gives a blunt answer: the studio does not use it for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Handing creative decisions over to an AI would defeat the reason we love making games," he says.
Wendschuh adds that the team only employs generative AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, not for any artistic or design purpose. Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline.
This mirrors Krafton‑owned Neon Giant’s public statement that it would not adopt the parent’s AI pivot. Both studios stress the importance of preserving jobs for voice actors, artists, and other creative professionals. Dietsch confirms that the six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is handcrafted, and the game’s 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—a point the team considered crucial, even for an indie title. Dietsch reflects on the differences between film and games, noting the immediacy of the latter.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and scheduling. In game development, an inspiration can be prototyped within hours and instantly visualised in the engine. "You can have an idea in the morning, drop it into Unreal, and see it in action that same day," he says, describing the exhilarating feedback loop that keeps him motivated.
Wendschuh points out that filmmaking is heavily front‑loaded: securing a high‑profile director or star is often a prerequisite for green‑lighting a project. While anyone can technically shoot a movie with a backyard camera, breaking through without marquee names or distribution is rare. By contrast, the video‑game market has fewer gatekeepers, making it easier for small teams to achieve success without celebrity talent. "We don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a hit game," he asserts.
Both men agree that, at their core, movies and games share the same creative impulse: delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. Dietsch’s childhood fascination with both mediums—programming on a TI‑83 calculator and dreaming of making movies—led him to a career that blurs the line between the two. "Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re crafting an experience and a narrative.
That fundamental goal hasn’t changed," he concludes. Join Us thus stands as a testament to what a focused, technically savvy, and creatively driven team can achieve without relying on massive staff counts or AI shortcuts. It showcases how Hollywood sensibilities, entrepreneurial grit, and a commitment to handcrafted artistry can converge to produce a bold, unconventional gaming experience.