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 preview, robed cultists zip around on pigs, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles.
One element that didn’t make the final cut of the trailer was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—originated from a simple suggestion by a team member’s child. "His son asked, ‘What if there’s a gun that shoots snakes?’ We had a modular weapon system that let us prototype new guns in under thirty minutes, so I built a snake‑shooter on the fly. The kid was thrilled, and the weapon stayed in the 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 friends in co‑op mode—to their retro‑70s‑style cult.
It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has allowed a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told ourselves we could build a AAA‑ish game with a dozen people, and everyone else thought we were crazy." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to punch far above their budgetary weight. After 80 pitches, the team finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving Wolf Haus the runway to bring Join Us to life.
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 company founded by Chris Roberts before he turned his attention to Star Citizen.
Abbott also produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. This blend of cinematic experience and entrepreneurial grit informs the studio’s narrative‑driven design philosophy. Join Us began as a personal experiment in Unreal Engine.
"Unreal is free to download, and I’d been a gamer my whole life, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge," Dietsch explains. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually settled on a doomsday cult simulator—a concept that fused his love of survival games with grindhouse cinema. The early proof‑of‑concept was rough but promising, and after showing it to Abbott, the idea was passed on to Dooma for further development. Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director, entered the picture after a varied career that spanned film production, screenwriting, and video‑game writing.
He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, he built several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly 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 immediately impressed by Dietsch’s demo and agreed to join the effort, bringing on former Warner Bros.
Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor and recruiting Ubisoft veteran Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as chief technology officer. Funding proved to be the next hurdle. The studio began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. Despite the challenging climate, the team’s persistence paid off.
After initial outreach, they signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, refined their pitch, and returned to investors in 2024. Their perseverance earned them a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton, whose equity stakes also meant the game could be self‑funded for most of its development. Wendschuh notes that this model gave the studio the breathing room to perfect its tooling without the pressure of short‑term revenue targets. Tooling is the cornerstone of Wolf Haus’s ability to do so much with so few people.
"Every system we build must be scalable and debuggable by a single developer," says Dietsch. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and constructing the underlying pipelines that would keep the open‑world map from collapsing under its own complexity.
This approach mirrors the studio’s broader ethos: whenever a technical obstacle appears, they build a bespoke tool to solve it, even if it slows short‑term progress, because it enables long‑term sustainability. A notable aspect of their workflow is the deliberate avoidance of generative AI in the creative process. While many studios have begun integrating AI‑driven assets to accelerate production, Wolf Haus has taken a firm stance against it.
"We believe a game should retain a human touch. Hand‑crafting the experience is why we get up in the morning," Dietsch affirms.
Wendschuh adds that the only AI they employ is for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting—not for art, design, or narrative. Interestingly, Krafton—an investor that has publicly positioned itself as an "AI‑first" company—specifically required Wolf Haus to refrain from using generative AI in its creative pipeline, echoing similar statements from other Krafton‑owned studios. The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map of Join Us is entirely hand‑modeled, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices.
This decision reflects the studio’s respect for creative labor and a desire to preserve jobs for voice talent and artists. Dietsch also highlights the immediacy that game development offers compared with film.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals and the alignment of high‑profile talent. By contrast, a concept can be prototyped in a single morning, dropped into the engine, and iterated upon instantly.
This rapid feedback loop fuels the team’s enthusiasm and underscores why, in his view, the barriers to entry for games are far lower than for movies. "You don’t need an A‑list star or director to get a game off the ground; you just need a compelling experience," he says. Both mediums, however, share a common creative impulse: the desire to tell a story and engage an audience.
Dietsch’s childhood fascination with both film and games—a coin toss that led to a camera for Christmas and programming on a TI‑83 calculator—illustrates how the two art forms intersect. Whether through a cult‑themed sandbox or a low‑budget indie film, the ultimate goal remains the same: to craft an immersive experience that resonates with players or viewers.
In summary, Wolf Haus’s journey demonstrates how a small, tightly knit team with Hollywood lineage, entrepreneurial savvy, and a commitment to bespoke tooling can defy industry expectations. By eschewing generative AI, securing patient equity partners, and leaning on a culture of hands‑on problem solving, they have built Join Us—a quirky, chaotic cult simulator that showcases what can be achieved when a dozen passionate creators pool their diverse expertise into a single, ambitious vision.