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 clip, robed followers charge on pig‑mounted platforms, wielding machine guns, before the screen fades to a massive, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles. What didn’t make the final cut was the infamous “snake gun,” a weapon that originated from a simple suggestion by a team member’s child. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recounted how the idea sparked a rapid prototype: “One of our team member’s sons asked, ‘Can there be a snake gun?’ Using a scalable gun‑creation tool, I whipped up a snake‑shooting weapon in about thirty minutes.
The kid was blown away, and the gun stayed in the game.” That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first philosophy, which has allowed a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: “We wanted to be disruptors.
We told everyone we could build this with twelve people, and they all thought we were crazy.” The team’s confidence stems from a history of punching above their weight in the indie film world. “We come from indie cinema and are used to doing big things on shoestring budgets,” Abbott explained. After 80 pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took a stake in the company. Wolf Haus’s founders have deep roots in Hollywood.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—and the two later co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie features Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott is the son of renowned makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before he moved on to Star Citizen.
Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us was born when Dietsch began experimenting with Unreal Engine, attracted by its free download model. “I’d loved games for years, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge. I downloaded Unreal, followed YouTube tutorials, and started tinkering,” he said.
Though he had no formal game‑development background, he managed to finish a few small projects before deciding to tackle something larger—a doomsday cult simulator that fused his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept prototype, expecting to hit a technical wall at some point. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma, a company that would later become instrumental in the studio’s growth.
Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had begun his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games in the early 2000s, contributing writing to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. He also founded several tech ventures, including a cannabis‑formulation firm that sold for C$430 million. After selling his cannabis company, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, planning a quiet retirement. Yet a call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back.
“I was looking at the video Joe had made, and it blew my mind. It convinced me to come out of retirement,” Wendschuh recalled. He introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, who became a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer.
With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was funding—an especially tough task during the industry downturn of 2023‑24. The studio began pitching in the summer of 2023, eventually signing with CAA in Los Angeles and re‑pitching in 2024.
Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton provided a seed round, a process aided by Wendschuh’s long‑standing relationship with CAA agent Derek Douglas, who had represented him during his twelve‑year game‑development career. Despite the high‑profile backing, Join Us remains a lean operation, employing just 13 full‑time staff. The studio deliberately kept the team small to preserve a collaborative atmosphere where every member can influence creative decisions. To make a large‑scale game feasible with so few hands, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling early on.
“Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch explained. “We spent the first year ideating the game while simultaneously building the tools that would let us expand the open world without the project collapsing under its own weight.” The equity funding model gave the studio the runway to perfect these tools. “Krafton and Lifelike’s investment funds the game directly, so it’s essentially self‑funded,” Wendschuh said.
“Because our investors own equity, they’re motivated to see the studio grow in value, which aligns with our philosophy of building robust tools for every problem we encounter. It may slow development, but it enables a tiny team to deliver an ambitious title.” When asked about generative AI, the team was unequivocal: they do not use it for creative work. “We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate content would defeat the purpose of why we love making games,” Dietsch affirmed.
Wendschuh added that while they have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management, none are employed in art, design, or writing. Interestingly, Krafton, which has branded 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 developers are also committed to handcrafted audio.
The six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is entirely hand‑built, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors—an effort the team deemed vital even for an indie project. Dietsch finds the immediacy of game development far more rewarding than film. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals before a director ever sees it on set.
In games, an inspiration can be coded into the engine the same day, allowing instant iteration. Wendschuh noted that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with extensive pre‑production work needed to secure high‑profile talent before a studio will green‑light a project.
While anyone can shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. By contrast, the lower barriers in games mean a small team can reach a wide audience without needing A‑list names. Both creators agree that whether one is making a film or a game, the core goal remains the same: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience. Dietsch reflected, “When I was six, I wanted to make games or movies.
It boiled down to a coin toss and getting a camera for Christmas. I learned to program on a TI‑83, so I’ve always loved both mediums. In the end, it’s about delivering a narrative that moves people, no matter the format."