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 teaser, robed followers ride on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with an ominous image of gigantic, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the cut, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—is the now‑famous snake gun.
"One of the developers’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that lets us scale weapons in minutes, so I whipped up a snake‑gun in about half an hour. The kid was blown away, and the weapon stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls.
This anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can amass followers—or invite friends in co‑op—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire. Beyond the wild premise, the project showcases Wolf Haus’s technology‑first philosophy, which has allowed a tiny crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a studio ten times its size. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed it up: "We set out to be disruptors.
Everyone told us a twelve‑person team couldn’t deliver a AAA‑level experience, but we knew from indie film work that we could punch far above our weight." The team’s background is steeped in Hollywood. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor‑director Mel Gibson, and the two later co‑wrote and co‑directed 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 founded by Chris Roberts before his Star Citizen days.
Abbott also produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. This blend of cinematic experience and entrepreneurial grit proved essential when Wolf Haus began the arduous quest for financing. After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital.
Both investors took a stake in Wolf Haus, giving the studio the runway to develop Join Us without resorting to external loans or rushed monetisation. The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch was tinkering with Unreal Engine.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt blocked by the high entry barrier to actually make one," he explains. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday‑cult simulator that merged his love of grindhouse cinema with survival‑game mechanics. He built a proof‑of‑concept, showed it to Abbott, and Abbott introduced the demo to Dooma, a partner studio that helped refine the concept.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, entered the picture after a career that spanned film production, screenwriting, and video‑game narrative work. In the early 2000s he founded Sekretagent Productions, providing story services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
Later, he launched several tech ventures, most notably Ebbu, a cannabis‑formulation company that sold for roughly C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After cashing out, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a phone call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into game development.
"I saw the prototype and it blew my mind. I couldn’t stay retired," he says. Wendschuh brought additional expertise by recruiting Reid Schneider—formerly a vice‑president at Warner Bros.
Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor. Schneider, in turn, hired Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as Wolf Haus’s chief technology officer. With this leadership team in place, the studio turned its focus to funding during a market downturn in mid‑2023. Initial outreach yielded interest but no commitments; after signing with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and re‑pitching in 2024, the studio finally closed a seed round with Krafton and Lifelike Capital.
The partnership with CAA proved pivotal. 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 department at William Morris. This network, combined with the credibility of veterans like Schneider and Chartrand, helped convince investors that a 13‑person studio could deliver a commercially viable product.
Wolf Haus’s development pipeline hinges on custom tools. "Every system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single developer," Dietsch notes. The first year of production was split almost evenly between designing gameplay concepts and engineering the underlying toolset. By investing heavily in reusable pipelines, the team ensured that as the open‑world map expanded, the project wouldn’t crumble under its own weight.
Funding from Krafton and Lifelike has allowed the studio to self‑finance the entire development cycle. "The equity partners gave us the capital to build the tools we needed, and we’ve used those funds to develop the game without external pressure," says Wendschuh.
The studio has begun to explore modest project‑finance options for marketing, but the core development remains fully equity‑backed. This model aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term vision of creating high‑quality tools that can be leveraged across future titles.
In an industry where many studios tout generative‑AI shortcuts, Wolf Haus deliberately steers clear of such technologies for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate assets would undermine why we love making games," Dietsch asserts. Wendschuh adds that the only AI they employ is for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required that Wolf Haus refrain from using generative AI in the creative pipeline, echoing similar statements from other Krafton‑owned studios such as Neon Giant. The studio’s commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio.
The six‑kilometre‑square map was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. "Even as a small indie, we felt it was crucial to preserve that level of authenticity," Dietsch explains.
Dietsch also reflects on the contrast between filmmaking and game development. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and massive budgets before a director ever sees a shot. In games, an inspiration can be prototyped the same day, allowing immediate iteration. "You can take a concept from a morning brainstorm and see it in the engine that afternoon," he says, describing the exhilarating immediacy of interactive media.
Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense pre‑production phases focused on securing A‑list talent to green‑light a project. While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. By contrast, the video‑game market has far fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without celebrity endorsements. "We don’t need a Hollywood A‑list actor or director to succeed," he notes.
Both founders agree that the core creative drive is the same across mediums: storytelling and delivering an experience. "When I was six, I wanted to make either games or movies.
It boiled down to a coin toss and getting a camera for Christmas," Dietsch recalls. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, merging his love of both crafts. Ultimately, whether through film or interactive entertainment, the goal remains to engage an audience, tell a compelling story, and evoke emotion.
Join Us thus stands as a testament to what a small, tightly knit team can achieve when they combine Hollywood storytelling instincts, savvy tech development, and disciplined financing—without leaning on generative AI. The result is a bizarre, hilarious, and meticulously crafted cult simulator that promises players a uniquely immersive sandbox experience.