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 pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates in a nightmarish vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final edit was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that originated from a spontaneous idea by a team member’s child. According to Joe Dietsch, CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the youngster asked, “Can there be a snake gun?” Leveraging an in‑house tool that can rapidly prototype firearms, Dietsch spent roughly thirty minutes building a gun that launches serpents.
The result amazed the child, and the weapon survived into the final version of the game. 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 philosophy, which has allowed a small crew 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.” Abbott explained the team’s mantra: “We told everyone we could build this game with a dozen people. Most people thought we were delusional.” Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to achieve big results on modest budgets.
After a marathon of 80 pitch meetings, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio. The founders’ Hollywood connections run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University, where he met Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—who later co‑founded Wolf Haus.
Together they 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 transition to the Star Citizen project.
Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us was born when Dietsch began tinkering with Unreal Engine. “I discovered Unreal was free to download and thought, ‘Why is it so hard for anyone to start creating?’ I started learning from YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny prototypes.” Despite lacking formal game‑development experience, he eventually crafted a small demo that sparked the idea of a doomsday cult simulator—a hybrid of survival mechanics and grindhouse cinema that merged his love for movies and games into a single intellectual property.
He built a proof‑of‑concept, expecting to hit a technical wall at some point. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma, a partner studio. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously produced and written for films before moving into games in the early 2000s.
He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire and enjoy a quiet life. Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, a call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back. Abbott mentioned a friend’s video‑game project, and when Wendschuh saw Dietsch’s demo, he was blown away and agreed to join the effort. He then recruited Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros.
Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic (the creators of Journey to the Savage Planet), as a strategic advisor, and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With the core team in place, the next hurdle was financing—an especially tough task during the industry downturn of 2023‑2024. The studio began pitching in the summer of 2023, receiving polite interest but also skepticism. After enlisting the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) as representation, they renewed their pitch efforts in 2024 and finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Wendschuh believes CAA’s clout, along with the credibility of veterans like Schneider and Chartrand, was crucial. “Derek Douglas, our CAA agent, had represented me for twelve years in games and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris,” he notes. What truly sets Join Us apart is the way it’s being built: a full‑scale, open‑world experience developed by only thirteen full‑time staff members.
Dietsch emphasizes that the team entered the project with a clear understanding of scope and a desire to keep the group small enough that every voice matters. To make such an ambitious vision feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains.
"We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a massive map without the project collapsing under its own weight. The first year was as much about creating those tools as it was about designing gameplay." The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s capital funded the entire development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing.
This structure aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the team to keep building reusable tools even when it slows immediate progress. When asked about the role of generative AI, Dietsch gave a blunt answer: the studio does not use it for creative work. "We believe a game needs a human touch.
Handing development over to an AI would defeat the purpose of why we get up every morning," he says. Wendschuh adds that while they have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, none of those tools touch the artistic side of production. Interestingly, Krafton—despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company—insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline.
This mirrors a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio, which publicly denied involvement in Krafton’s AI pivot. Both companies appear keen to protect the integrity of handcrafted content. Indeed, every element of Join Us’s six‑kilometre‑square world is hand‑crafted, and the game’s 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices.
Dietsch stresses that this commitment to artisanal production is vital, even for a modest indie title. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and games.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and studio green‑lights before a director ever steps onto a set. In contrast, a game idea can be prototyped the same day: "You can have a concept in the morning, drop it into the engine, see it instantly, and start iterating," he says, describing the immediacy that fuels his passion.
Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, high‑stakes periods on set, and often depends on securing a handful of marquee names to obtain financing. While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare.
Game development, by contrast, faces fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without needing A‑list talent. Both founders agree that the core creative drive remains the same across mediums: telling stories, delivering experiences, and engaging audiences. Dietsch recounts that as a six‑year‑old he wanted to make either movies or games, and a coin toss decided his path.
He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, a hobby that has stayed with him ever since. Whether through film or interactive media, he believes the goal is to craft compelling narratives that resonate with people. In summary, Wolf Haus’s journey illustrates how a handful of Hollywood‑savvy creators, bolstered by savvy tech development and strategic equity partners, can defy conventional expectations.
By rejecting generative AI, investing in bespoke tools, and embracing a lean, collaborative culture, they are delivering an ambitious, hand‑crafted cult‑simulator that promises both chaotic fun and a fresh perspective on what small studios can achieve.