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 clip, robed followers charge on pigs while brandishing machine guns, and the sequence culminates in a nightmarish vision of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final edit was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a simple suggestion by a team member’s child. "His son asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’" Dietsch recalls.
"Because we had built a modular gun system, I could prototype it in about thirty minutes. The kid was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the game." This anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title where players can recruit followers—or teammates—to build a 1970s‑style cult.
It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a tiny 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 philosophy: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred people; twelve is enough.’ Most people thought we were crazy." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where small budgets often force creators to punch far above their weight. After 80 pitches, the team finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving them the financial runway to continue development.
The founders’ Hollywood connections run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded Wolf Haus and 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 moved on to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "I discovered the engine was free to download and started learning from YouTube tutorials," he explains. Although he had never built a game before, he managed to create a couple of small prototypes before deciding to tackle something larger: a doomsday cult simulator that fused survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the pair took the concept to Dooma, the studio that would later become Wolf Haus. Dooma Wendschuh, the studio’s CFO and narrative director, began his career as a producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s. He founded Sekretagent Productions, which supplied writing for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
Later, he launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis‑formulation company Ebbu, sold for roughly C$430 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 immediately impressed by Dietsch’s demo and agreed to join the effort. He recruited former Warner Bros.
Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. Funding proved to be the biggest hurdle. The team began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a market downturn that made investors cautious. Initial reactions were positive—"cool"—but securing capital required persistence.
After partnering 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 relationship, noting that the agency also represents high‑profile titles like 007: First Light, and that veteran game industry contacts such as Derek Douglas (their agent) added credibility. What truly sets Join Us apart is the scale of its ambition relative to the size of its team. With only 13 full‑time staff members, Wolf Haus deliberately kept the group small to ensure everyone could contribute creatively and retain a sense of ownership.
To make a game of this magnitude feasible, the studio invested heavily in internal tooling from day one. "Any system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," says Dietsch. "We spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay and constructing the tools that would let us expand the open world without the project collapsing under its own weight." The equity‑funded model gave the studio the breathing room needed to perfect these tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s investment was used to self‑finance 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 short‑term progress. In an industry increasingly obsessed with generative AI, Wolf Haus has taken a clear stance against its use in creative production. "We don’t use generative AI for any artistic work," Dietsch affirms. "Our process relies on human creativity; handing the work over to an algorithm would defeat the purpose of why we love making games." Wendschuh adds that the studio only employs AI for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Interestingly, Krafton—publicly branding itself as an "AI‑first" company—explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid AI in the game’s creation, mirroring similar assurances from other Krafton‑owned studios such as Neon Giant. The commitment to handcrafted content is evident throughout Join Us.
The six‑kilometer‑square map was built by hand, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by real actors, not synthetic voices. Dietsch emphasizes that preserving a human touch was non‑negotiable, even for an indie project of this scope. Transitioning from film to games, Dietsch finds the immediacy of interactive media exhilarating.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and location logistics before a director ever sees a shot. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed directly into the engine, and instantly visualized. This rapid feedback loop fuels the team’s iterative design philosophy.
Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense pre‑production phases dominated by securing high‑profile talent to green‑light a project. While anyone can shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. Video games, however, have far fewer gatekeepers; a small team can reach a global audience without needing A‑list actors or directors. Both mediums, though, share a common creative impulse: storytelling and immersion.
Dietsch reflects on his childhood, recalling a coin toss that decided whether he would pursue games or movies. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, filmed with a Christmas‑gift camera, and ultimately realized that whether you’re crafting a film or a game, the goal is the same—to give people an experience, tell a story, and engage their imagination. The journey of Wolf Haus illustrates how a handful of Hollywood‑savvy, tech‑oriented creators can defy industry expectations, build a sprawling cult simulator, and do it all without leaning on generative AI.