The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. The teaser showed robed followers riding pigs, brandishing machine guns, and culminated in a shot of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that CEO and creative director Joe Dietsch says was born from a simple suggestion by a team member’s child. “His son asked, ‘Can we have a snake gun?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool, so within half an hour I built a gun that fires snakes.
He was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the game,” Dietsch recalls. That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, improvisational style of gameplay Join Us aims to deliver. The title is an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or other players in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult.
It also highlights Wolf Haus Games’ technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a high‑fidelity, large‑scale project to be produced by an exceptionally small team. Michael Abbott, the studio’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: “We set out to be disruptors.
Everyone told us a twelve‑person crew couldn’t pull off a game of this magnitude, but we proved them wrong.” The founders’ backgrounds are steeped in Hollywood. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded Wolf Haus. Together they co‑wrote and co‑directed indie features such as Happy Hunting and Manifest West.
Abbott, the son of renowned makeup artist Larry Abbott, helped launch Ascendant Pictures—Chris Roberts’ production company before he moved on to Star Citizen—and later produced films like Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. This cinematic experience gave the team a knack for punching far above their financial weight, a skill they carried into game development. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments with Unreal Engine. “I discovered Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt blocked by the cost and complexity of making one,” he explains.
After learning the basics from YouTube tutorials, he built a few tiny prototypes before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that merged survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He created a proof‑of‑concept demo and showed it to Abbott, who then presented it to Dooma, a partner studio.
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 writing for 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 firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million. After buying a remote island restaurant in Canada and planning a quiet retirement, 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 help finance the project.
To secure funding, Wolf Haus embarked on an aggressive pitch campaign during the industry downturn of 2023‑2024. After 80 presentations, they attracted equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital. Their representation by Creative Artists Agency (CAA) also opened doors; CAA’s veteran agent Derek Douglas, who had previously represented Wendschuh during his twelve‑year game‑making stint, proved instrumental in connecting the studio with strategic advisors like Reid Schneider, former Warner Bros.
Games VP, and CTO Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer. Despite the high‑profile backing, the studio kept its headcount deliberately low—13 full‑time staff members. Dietsch emphasizes that this lean structure was intentional: “We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative process, and to feel ownership over the final product.” To make such an ambitious title feasible with a small crew, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset. “Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch notes.
The first year of development was therefore split between designing gameplay concepts and building the internal tools that would later allow those concepts to scale across a six‑kilometre‑square open world. The equity funding model gave the studio the runway to perfect these tools without the pressure of short‑term milestones. Krafton and Lifelike’s capital financed the entire development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing.
This arrangement aligned investor incentives with the studio’s ethos: “Our backers want the studio’s enterprise value to grow, so they support our tool‑building philosophy, even if it slows immediate progress.” When asked about generative AI, both Dietsch and Wendschuh are unequivocal: the studio does not employ AI for creative work. “We believe a game needs a human touch. Using an AI to generate assets would defeat why we get up each morning,” Dietsch says.
Wendschuh adds that the only AI tools they use are for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton—publicly branding itself as an “AI‑first” company—insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s massive map and its 15,000 voice lines, all recorded by human actors. Dietsch stresses that this level of manual effort is a point of pride, especially for an indie studio.
He also highlights the immediacy of game development compared with film. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring extensive pre‑production, casting, and studio approval.
In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualised. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded: “You need a handful of A‑list directors or actors to green‑light a movie, and without that backing, a backyard production rarely finds an audience.” Video games, however, have far fewer gatekeepers. “You don’t need an A‑list star or director to launch a successful title,” he explains, noting that the democratisation of distribution platforms makes it easier for small teams to reach players.
Both founders agree that whether you’re making a movie or a game, the core goal remains the same: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience. Dietsch reflects on his childhood ambition to create either medium, noting that a coin toss—and perhaps a Christmas camera—could have sent his career down a very different path. Ultimately, Join Us stands as a testament to what a tight‑knit, Hollywood‑savvy team can achieve when they blend cinematic storytelling, inventive tooling, and a refusal to rely on generative AI, all while keeping the development crew to just a dozen‑plus members.