The trailer for Join Us first caught the public’s eye during the Xbox Showcase in June, presenting a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and ultimately confront massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous “snake gun,” a quirky weapon that originated from an off‑hand suggestion by a team member’s child. Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recounts the moment: “The kid asked, ‘Can there be a snake gun?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new gun in about thirty minutes, so I built one that literally shoots snakes.
It blew his mind, and it stayed in the game.” That anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit AI followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: “We set out to be disruptors. We told everyone we could deliver a AAA‑level game with just twelve people, and they laughed.” 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 tiny and creativity has to compensate,” Abbott explains. After a marathon of 80 pitch meetings, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus.
Wolf Haus’s founding trio boasts deep ties to Hollywood. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—who now serves as a co‑founder. Together they 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 his transition to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch began experimenting with Unreal Engine after discovering it could be downloaded for free.
“I’d been a gamer my whole life, but the barrier to actually creating a game felt huge,” he says. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually gravitated toward a doomsday‑cult concept that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the two took it to Dooma, a production partner that helped refine the vision.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, entered the gaming arena after a career in film production and screenwriting. In the early 2000s he founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. He later launched several tech ventures, including the cannabis‑formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million (about $330 million USD). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire.
Yet a chance call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry. After reviewing Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh was convinced and introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former Warner Bros. Games VP and now head of Raccoon Logic, who became a strategic advisor.
Schneider recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing, a daunting task amid a market downturn in 2023. The studio’s first outreach yielded interest but no commitments. After enlisting CAA (Creative Artists Agency) as representation and returning to the pitch circuit in 2024, they finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Wendschuh credits the CAA connection—whose roster includes titles like 007: First Light—and the credibility of veterans Schneider and Chartrand for opening doors. Despite the high‑profile backing, Join Us remains a lean operation, employing just 13 full‑time staff members.
Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional: “We wanted a studio where every voice matters, where everyone can touch the creative process, and where the final product truly reflects a tight‑knit team.” To make such an ambitious open‑world game feasible with limited manpower, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. “If a system can’t be scaled and debugged by a single person, it becomes a bottleneck,” Dietsch explains. The first year of development was split between designing gameplay concepts and building the internal tools that would later allow those concepts to scale across a six‑kilometer‑square map. The equity financing model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect those tools without external pressure to cut corners.
“Krafton and Lifelike’s investment essentially self‑funded the game,” says Wendschuh. “We’ve started to take on a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but the core development was covered by their equity stakes.” This arrangement aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term goal of increasing enterprise value, encouraging the team to continue building reusable tools even when they temporarily slow development. In an industry where many small studios lean on generative AI to stretch resources, Wolf Haus deliberately shuns the technology for creative work. “We believe a human touch is essential,” Dietsch states.
“Using AI to generate assets would defeat the purpose of why we love making games.” Wendschuh adds that the team only uses AI for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting, never for art, design, or narrative. Krafton, despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company, also 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 world and voice work. The entire six‑kilometer‑square map was manually built, and all 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—a point of pride for a studio of this size.
“We wanted to prove that an indie team can deliver a fully human‑crafted experience,” says Dietsch. Transitioning from film to games gave Dietsch a sense of immediacy he never experienced on a movie set.
In film, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring approvals, casting, and scheduling. In game development, an idea can be prototyped in a matter of hours, allowing instant feedback and iteration. Wendschuh notes that while filmmaking is heavily front‑loaded—requiring star power and studio greenlights—games have far fewer gatekeepers. “You don’t need an A‑list actor or director to get a game published; the barriers are lower, which makes the medium more accessible for small teams.” Both mediums, however, share a core creative impulse: storytelling and immersion.
Dietsch reflects, “When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It came down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas.
I learned to program on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been drawn to both. Ultimately, whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re crafting an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience.” Join Us stands as a testament to what a small, tightly‑focused team can achieve when they combine Hollywood pedigree, savvy tech development, and a clear philosophical stance against over‑reliance on AI.
The game promises a wild, satirical ride through cult management, complete with snake‑shooting firearms, while showcasing the power of human‑driven creativity in an era of automated shortcuts.