The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers ride pig‑back and unleash a barrage of firearms, culminating in a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like tentacle monster. What didn’t make the cut, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the studio behind the title—was the infamous snake gun. "One of the team members’ kids suggested a snake‑shooting weapon," Dietsch recalls. "We had a rapid‑prototyping tool for guns, so within half an hour I built a gun that fires snakes.
The kid went wild, and the weapon stayed in the final build." 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 philosophy, which has allowed a relatively tiny crew to craft a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up succinctly: "We wanted to be disruptors." "We kept hearing, ‘You can’t build a game of this scope with only twelve people.’ Everyone thought we were dreaming," Abbott says. "But we’ve spent our careers punching well above our weight in indie film, so we knew how to stretch a modest budget.
After eighty pitches we finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital." The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. 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 veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to Star Citizen.
Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us began as a personal experiment for Dietsch in Unreal Engine. "Unreal Engine is free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to actually creating one," he explains.
"I started watching YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny prototypes." Even without a formal background in game development, Dietsch managed to finish a couple of small games before deciding to tackle something bigger. "The idea of a doomsday cult simulator kept coming back to me because it merged my love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema.
I wanted an IP that could sit at the intersection of movies and games." He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming it would hit a technical wall soon enough. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma, the studio’s early‑stage partner.
Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously worked as a producer and screenwriter in Hollywood before moving into games in the early 2000s, providing writing for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. In the 2010s he founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which later sold for C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After selling his cannabis business, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
Yet, in classic Hollywood fashion, a call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back. "I was looking at a video game Joe had made, and it blew my mind. It convinced me to come out of retirement," Wendschuh says. He then introduced the project to Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros.
Games VP now heading Raccoon Logic, and Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With a core team taking shape, the next hurdle was financing—a difficult task in a market downturn that began in 2023.
The studio began pitching that summer, initially receiving polite interest but little commitment. After signing with CAA (Creative Artists Agency) and re‑pitching in 2024, Wolf Haus finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—whose roster includes titles like 007: First Light—as a key factor, as well as the credibility added by veterans such as Schneider and Chartrand. Despite the high‑profile backing, the studio remains remarkably small: only 13 full‑time employees. Dietsch emphasizes that the size is intentional.
"We wanted a team where everyone has a voice, everyone can touch the creative, and the game feels like it was made by a specific group of people." To make such an ambitious open‑world title possible with a lean crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "If a system exists in the game, a single person must be able to scale and debug it," 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 building those tools as it was about designing the game itself." The equity funding model gave the studio the runway to perfect those tools. "Krafton and Lifelike invested directly into the company, and we used those funds to self‑finance development," says Wendschuh. "We’re now only looking at a modest project‑finance line for marketing. The investors are motivated to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos even if it slows short‑term development." When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in the industry—Dietsch gives a clear answer: none is used in the creative process.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Turning development over to an AI would defeat why we get up every morning." Wendschuh adds a nuance: "We have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafts, but nothing that touches the creative side of the game." Interestingly, Krafton, which markets itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in production. This mirrors a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio, which publicly denied using AI for its projects.
Both studios argue that AI could threaten jobs for voice actors, artists, and other creatives. Indeed, Join Us’s six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely handcrafted, and its 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—a point the team proudly highlights as a hallmark of their indie ethos. Dietsch reflects on the differences between film and games. In cinema, an idea can sit on paper for years before it sees the light of day, subject to endless approvals and the need for A‑list talent.
In game development, however, an idea can be prototyped in a matter of hours. "You can have a concept in the morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly. That immediacy is exhilarating," he says.
Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded: securing big‑name directors or actors is often a prerequisite for greenlighting. While anyone can shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without established names or distribution is rare. By contrast, the barriers to entry for games are lower, allowing small teams to reach a global audience without celebrity backing.
Both founders agree that the core creative impulse—telling a story and delivering an experience—remains the same across mediums. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games; it boiled down to a coin toss and maybe getting a camera for Christmas," Dietsch laughs.
"I learned to program on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been straddling both worlds. Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re trying to engage an audience and convey a narrative. That fundamental goal doesn’t change."