The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, introducing players to a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with a glimpse of massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the most memorable, yet omitted, moments was the appearance of a snake‑shooting weapon, a detail that Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—credits to a spontaneous idea from a team member’s child.
"His son asked, ‘What would a snake gun look like?’ We had a modular weapon system that let us prototype it in under thirty minutes, and the result was a fully functional snake‑launcher that made it into the final build," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us.
The title is 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 showcases the studio’s tech‑first philosophy, which has enabled a high‑fidelity, content‑rich game to be produced by a surprisingly small crew. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, sums it up: “We set out to be disruptors. Everyone told us you needed a hundred‑person studio to pull off something like this; we proved them wrong with just twelve core developers.” The team’s confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets.
Many of the founders cut their teeth on independent film projects, learning to “punch above their weight.” After an arduous 80‑pitch marathon, they finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now hold stakes in Wolf Haus. Wolf Haus’s leadership is steeped in Hollywood pedigree. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of actor‑director Mel Gibson—who later co‑founded the studio. Together they co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie features Happy Hunting and Manifest West.
Abbott, the son of veteran makeup artist Larry Abbott, helped launch Ascendant Pictures, the production company founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to Star Citizen, and later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. The genesis of Join Us traces back to Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge. I started learning from YouTube tutorials and built a couple of tiny prototypes," he explains.
Those modest projects sparked a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that blended survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept, expecting to hit a technical wall at some point. When he showed the demo to Abbott, Abbott immediately took it to Dooma, a partner who helped refine the concept.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, entered the picture after a varied 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 through his company Sekretagent Productions. He later founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis‑formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million.
After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back into the industry. Wendschuh was instantly impressed by Dietsch’s demo and agreed to join the effort.
To bolster the team’s technical expertise, Wolf Haus recruited Reid Schneider—formerly a vice president at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic—and Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran programmer from Ubisoft Montreal, as chief technology officer. With this core in place, the studio turned its focus to funding, a challenging task given the industry downturn of 2023‑2024.
After initial outreach, the team partnered with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for representation, refined their pitch, and eventually closed a seed round with Krafton and Lifelike Capital. The partnership with CAA, which also represents high‑profile titles like 007: First Light, proved instrumental. "Our agent Derek Douglas had represented me for twelve years in the gaming world and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris," Wendschuh notes, highlighting how industry connections eased the fundraising process. Despite the high ambitions, Join Us is being built by just 13 full‑time staff members.
Dietsch emphasizes that the small‑team model fosters a collaborative atmosphere where every voice matters and each person can directly influence the creative direction. To make such a scope feasible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "Every system must be scalable and debuggable by a single developer," he says.
The first year of development was split between ideating game mechanics and constructing the internal toolset that would later support the open‑world map, ensuring the project wouldn’t collapse under its own weight. Funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance the entire development cycle, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. This equity‑backed model aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the continual building of in‑house tools. "Whenever we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we simply build a tool to address it," Wendschuh explains.
While this approach can slow short‑term progress, it empowers a tiny team to deliver a game of considerable scale. When asked about generative AI, the team is unequivocal: they do not rely on it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Using AI to generate assets would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," Dietsch states. Wendschuh adds that their only AI usage is limited to administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton—positioned as an "AI‑first" company—explicitly discouraged the studio from employing generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a broader industry caution about AI displacing voice actors and artists.
All of Join Us’s assets, including its six‑kilometre‑square map and roughly 15,000 voice lines, were handcrafted by human artists and actors. Dietsch highlights this as a point of pride, especially for an indie studio of their size. Transitioning from film to games, Dietsch appreciates the immediacy games offer. In cinema, a concept can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals and a massive crew.
In contrast, a game idea can be prototyped within hours, allowing creators to see their vision instantly in the engine. Wendschuh observes that filmmaking is heavily front‑loaded, with extensive pre‑production hurdles, whereas games have fewer gatekeepers, making it easier for small teams to achieve success without A‑list talent.
Both mediums, however, share a core mission: to deliver an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience. Dietsch reflects on his childhood, noting that whether he received a camera or a programming calculator for Christmas, his passion for creating narratives has always driven him. Join Us stands as a testament to that passion, proving that a lean, Hollywood‑infused team can craft a sprawling, high‑quality game without leaning on generative AI.