The buzz around Join Us first erupted when its trailer lit up the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates in an ominous shot of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles looming over the horizon. One detail that didn’t make the final edit was the infamous “snake gun,” a weapon that, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—was born out of a spontaneous idea from a team member’s child. “His son asked, ‘Can there be a snake gun?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool for firearms, so within half an hour I built a gun that shoots snakes.
It blew his mind, and it stayed in the game,” Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us. The title is an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can amass followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire. Yet the most striking aspect of the project is not its bizarre gameplay but the way a tiny team has managed to produce a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up the ambition: “We set out to be disruptors. We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred people; twelve will do.’ Most people thought we were insane.” The team’s confidence stems from a history of punching far above their weight in the indie film world.
“We come from indie cinema, where budgets are razor‑thin and you have to wear many hats,” Abbott explains. After 80 relentless pitches, Wolf Haus finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving the studio the runway it needed.
Wolf Haus’s founders are steeped in Hollywood lineage. 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, a production company originally founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen universe. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch began tinkering with Unreal Engine, attracted by the fact that the engine could be downloaded for free. “I’d been a gamer forever, but creating something felt out of reach. I downloaded Unreal, followed YouTube tutorials, and started experimenting,” he says.
Despite no formal training, he built a handful of small prototypes before deciding to tackle something bigger: a doomsday cult simulator that merged his love of survival games with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He crafted an early proof‑of‑concept, assuming it would soon hit a technical wall.
When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter immediately took it to Dooma, a partner studio. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, entered the picture after a varied career that spanned film production, screenwriting, and video‑game narrative work on titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins through his company Sekretagent Productions. In the 2010s he founded several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After cashing out, he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, planning a quiet retirement. That plan was upended when an old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, called with a video‑game project that blew Wendschuh’s mind and pulled him back into development.
He then recruited Reid Schneider, former Warner Bros. Games VP and now head of Raccoon Logic, as a strategic advisor, and brought Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, on board as chief technology officer. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing—a daunting task during the industry downturn of 2023‑24. Initial pitches generated interest but also skepticism.
The studio eventually partnered with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, leveraging the agency’s clout to secure a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton. “Having CAA, which also represents titles like 007: First Light, opened doors,” Wendschuh notes, adding that veteran agents like Derek Douglas—who had represented him during his twelve‑year game‑making stint—were instrumental. What truly sets Join Us apart is the production model: a full‑time staff of just thirteen people. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team philosophy was intentional.
“We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership of the game,” he says. To make such an ambitious project feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. “If a system exists, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch explains.
The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay and building the internal toolchain that would keep the open‑world map from collapsing under its own weight. The equity funding from Kraftor and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance the entire development, with only a modest slice of project finance earmarked for marketing. This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s ethos of tool‑driven creation.
“Our backers want the studio’s enterprise value to grow, so they support us in building extensive tools. Whenever we encounter a problem we can’t solve, we build a bespoke tool. It may slow us down, but it lets a tiny team achieve something massive,” Wendschuh explains.
In an era where many studios tout generative‑AI pipelines, Wolf Haus deliberately shuns the technology for creative work. “We don’t use generative AI in game creation. The human touch is essential to us,” Dietsch states.
Wendschuh adds that while they may use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management, it never touches design, art, or writing. Interestingly, Krafton—publicly branding itself as an “AI‑first” company—insisted that Wolf Haus remain AI‑free in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The commitment to handcrafted content is evident throughout Join Us. The six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely hand‑built, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by real actors, not synthetic voices.
“That level of human involvement mattered to us, even as an indie,” Dietsch affirms. Dietsch also reflects on the contrast between film and game development. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent.
By contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours, offering immediate feedback. “You can have an idea this morning, drop it into the engine, and see it instantly,” he says, describing the exhilaration of rapid iteration. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense set‑time and a reliance on securing A‑list directors or actors to greenlight a project.
While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare. Game development, however, has far fewer gatekeepers.
“You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a successful game. The barriers to entry are lower, and the chances of success are higher,” he notes. Both founders agree that the core creative impulse—telling stories and crafting experiences—remains the same across mediums.
“When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It came down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera.
I learned programming on a TI‑83, so games have always been part of me. Whether it’s film or interactive media, you’re delivering an experience, a narrative, an emotional journey,” Dietsch concludes.
Join Us thus stands as a testament to what a small, tightly knit, Hollywood‑savvy team can achieve without relying on the latest AI shortcuts. By marrying indie‑film resourcefulness, a robust in‑house toolset, and a clear creative vision, Wolf Haus is poised to deliver a uniquely bizarre yet meticulously crafted cult‑building adventure that could redefine expectations for indie‑scale game development.