You may remember that Join Us first appeared in the Xbox Showcase trailer back in June, showcasing a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers ride on pigs, fire machine guns, and the finale hints at colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the cut was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch says was born from a simple request by a team member’s child.
“His son asked, ‘Can we have a snake‑shooting gun?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool, so within half an hour I built a gun that launches snakes. He was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the game,” Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small, twelve‑person team to craft a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, explains their philosophy: “We set out to be disruptors. Everyone told us it was impossible to build something this ambitious with only a dozen people, but we came from indie filmmaking where we learned to punch far above our budget.” After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving the project the financial backing it needed. The founders of Wolf Haus have deep roots in Hollywood. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded the studio 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 started by Chris Roberts before his shift to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. This blend of cinematic experience and entrepreneurial grit set the stage for their foray into interactive entertainment.
Join Us originated from Dietsch tinkering with Unreal Engine. “I discovered Unreal was free to download and started learning from YouTube tutorials,” he says. Though he had never built a game before, he managed to create a few small prototypes before deciding to tackle something larger.
The concept of a doomsday cult simulator appealed to him because it merged his love for survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics, creating a unique intellectual property that straddles both film and games. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, expecting to hit a technical wall at some point. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter immediately took it to Dooma, a production partner. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s, contributing writing to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
He later founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry. Wendschuh was impressed by Dietsch’s demo and agreed to join, bringing on Reid Schneider—former VP at Warner Bros.
Games—and Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as strategic advisor and chief technology officer respectively. Funding proved to be the next hurdle. The team began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn.
“People liked what we were building, but the market was tight,” Dietsch notes. After initial outreach, the studio signed with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles and relaunched their pitch campaign in 2024, eventually closing a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh believes the CAA connection—alongside veteran advisors like Schneider and Chartrand—was instrumental, noting that his own agent Derek Douglas had previously represented him during a twelve‑year stint in game development. Despite the pedigree, Join Us is being crafted by just 13 full‑time staff members.
Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model was intentional: “We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership over the final product.” To make such an ambitious open‑world possible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset. “Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch explains. “We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and building the internal tools that would let us expand the world without it collapsing under its own weight.” This tool‑centric approach also aligns with the investors’ philosophy. Krafton and Lifelike provided equity funding that allowed the studio to self‑finance development, using the capital primarily for tool creation rather than external services.
When asked about the role of generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not use it for creative tasks. “We believe a game needs a human touch.
Hand‑crafting our six‑kilometre‑square map and recording 15,000 voice lines with real actors is a core part of our identity,” says Dietsch. Wendschuh adds that while they may employ AI for mundane administrative duties like calendar management, it never touches the artistic side of development. Interestingly, Krafton—though branding itself as an “AI‑first” company—insisted that Wolf Haus not rely on generative AI for game creation, mirroring a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio. The team’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to voice work and level design.
Every corner of the game world was manually modeled, and each of the 15,000 dialogue lines was recorded by human actors, a decision Dietsch feels is essential for preserving authenticity, even for an indie‑scale project. Dietsch also reflects on the contrast between filmmaking and game development. In film, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and a massive production pipeline before the director ever sees the final product. In games, however, an idea can be prototyped within hours, placed directly into the engine, and iterated on immediately.
“The immediacy is exhilarating—you can see your concept alive the same day you think of it,” he says. Wendschuh notes that while movies are front‑loaded with pre‑production hurdles and reliance on a few high‑profile talents to secure financing, games have far fewer gatekeepers.
“You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to get a game greenlit; the barrier to entry is much lower, which democratizes the creative process.” Both creators agree that storytelling is the common thread linking the two mediums. Dietsch recalls his childhood fascination with both games and movies, learning to program on a TI‑83 calculator and dreaming of making either a film or a game.
“Whether you’re crafting a movie or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. The tools may differ, but the creative impulse is the same.” Join Us thus stands as a testament to what a tightly knit, technically adept team can achieve when they combine Hollywood storytelling sensibilities, entrepreneurial experience from unrelated industries, and a steadfast refusal to outsource creativity to AI.
The result is a quirky, high‑energy cult simulator that promises both absurd fun and a glimpse into how a small, passionate studio can disrupt traditional game development pipelines.