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 cultists ride atop pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with an image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the cut, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the studio behind Join Us—was the infamous snake‑gun. "One of the developers’ kids came up with the idea and asked, ‘What if there was a snake gun?’ We had a modular weapon system that let us prototype a new gun in about thirty minutes.
I built a snake‑shooting weapon on the fly, and the kid was ecstatic. It stuck around and is still in the final game," Dietsch recalls. This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op—to join a retro‑70s‑style cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small crew to deliver a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a much larger team.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve talented people can do this.’ Most people thought we were naïve." The team’s confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to punch far above their budgetary weight.
After 80 pitch meetings, Wolf Haus finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now hold stakes in the company. 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 outfit 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 originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
"Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games. It felt like there was a massive barrier to actually creating something, so I started learning from YouTube tutorials and built a few tiny prototypes," he explains. Though he had no formal game‑dev background, Dietsch managed to ship a couple of small titles before deciding to tackle something bigger: a doomsday cult simulator that fused his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept, assuming it would eventually hit a technical wall.
When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter 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, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, intending to retire. "I thought I’d just walk my dog on the beach," he says.
Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, changed those plans. Abbott told him a friend had built a video game, and after watching a demo, Wendschuh was convinced to come out of retirement and join the project.
Through Abbott’s network, the studio recruited Reid Schneider—formerly a vice‑president at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the makers of Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor. Schneider then brought on Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With the core team in place, the next hurdle was financing, which proved difficult during the industry downturn of 2023‑24.
"People liked what we were building, but the market was tight," says Dietsch. The studio enlisted Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, re‑approached investors in 2024, and eventually closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh believes CAA’s representation—alongside titles like 007: First Light—was instrumental, as was the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand.
"My agent Derek Douglas had represented me for twelve years in games and previously ran the video‑game department at William Morris," Wendschuh notes. Despite the pedigree, Join Us is being built by only 13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team philosophy is intentional: "We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership over a game that truly reflects our collective vision." To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible with a tiny crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset.
"If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch explains. The studio spent the first year simultaneously designing gameplay concepts and building the internal tools that would later allow those concepts to scale across a six‑kilometre‑square map without collapsing under their own weight.
The equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike gave the studio the runway to perfect these tools. "The money we received was used to self‑fund the development. We’re now adding a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development has been covered entirely by our investors," says Wendschuh.
This model aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the team to keep building reusable tools even if it slows short‑term progress. When asked about generative AI—a hot topic in game development—Dietsch is unequivocal: "We don’t use any generative AI for creative work. The human touch is essential to us." Wendschuh adds, "We have a few AI subscriptions for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, but none of that touches the creative pipeline." Interestingly, Krafton, which recently branded itself as an “AI‑first” company, explicitly required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative process.
This mirrors Krafton‑owned Neon Giant’s public stance that it would not adopt generative AI for its games. Both Wendschuh and Dietsch stress that they view AI as a potential threat to creative jobs, especially for voice actors and artists.
"Our six‑kilometre map is handcrafted, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human talent. That was a non‑negotiable decision for us," Dietsch asserts. Dietsch also highlights a key advantage of games over film: immediacy. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals and a long production pipeline.
In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualized. "That instant feedback loop is exhilarating," he says.
Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense pre‑production phases involving a handful of high‑profile directors or actors to secure studio backing. While anyone can technically shoot a backyard movie, breaking through without marquee names or distribution is rare.
By comparison, the barriers to releasing a successful indie game are lower; you don’t need an A‑list star or director to attract an audience. Both founders agree that the core creative impulse—telling a story and delivering an experience—remains the same across mediums.
Dietsch reflects, "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It boiled down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas.
I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been straddling both worlds. Whether it’s film or a game, the goal is to engage people, tell them a story, and give them an experience. That essence never changes." In summary, Wolf Haus’s Join Us is a testament to what a small, tightly knit team can achieve when they combine Hollywood storytelling sensibilities, entrepreneurial tech development, and a clear stance against over‑reliance on generative AI.
Their journey—from a free Unreal Engine download to a fully funded, high‑production cult simulator—demonstrates that with the right tools, a bold vision, and a handful of dedicated creators, even the most ambitious game ideas can be realized without a massive roster or cutting‑edge AI shortcuts.