The trailer for Join Us first caught the public’s eye during the Xbox Showcase in June, presenting a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers charge on pig‑back, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and culminate in a nightmarish vision of Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t appear in that brief clip was the infamous snake‑gun—a weapon that, according to Joe Dietsch, CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, was born from a child’s off‑hand suggestion. "One of the team members’ kids asked, ‘What would a snake gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us spin up a new weapon in about thirty minutes, so I built it on the spot. The kid went nuts, and the gun stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls.
This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game that lets players recruit followers—or fellow players in co‑op mode—to a retro‑style 1970s cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a high‑fidelity title to be produced by a remarkably small crew.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. Everyone told us a twelve‑person team couldn’t deliver a game of this scale. We proved them wrong." Their confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on modest budgets. "Our roots are in indie filmmaking, where you constantly have to punch above your weight," Abbott says.
After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor‑director Mel Gibson and fellow Wolf Haus 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, a production company originally founded by Chris Roberts before his move to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies 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 been a gamer and movie‑buff my whole life, but the barrier to actually creating something felt huge.
I started tinkering with tutorials on YouTube and built a few tiny prototypes," he explains. Despite having no formal game‑dev background, Dietsch managed to ship several small titles before committing to a larger vision: a doomsday cult simulator that fuses survival mechanics with grindhouse‑cinema aesthetics. He built a proof‑of‑concept, assuming he would eventually hit a technical wall. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter immediately 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 transitioning to games in the early 2000s, providing writing services for titles such as Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later, Wendschuh founded several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million (≈US$330 million). After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, planning a quiet retirement. Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back.
"I was looking at a game Joe had made, and it blew my mind. I decided to come out of retirement," Wendschuh says.
He introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the studio behind Journey to the Savage Planet. Schneider joined as a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer.
With a core team taking shape, the next hurdle was financing—particularly difficult during the industry downturn of 2023‑24. The studio partnered with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, leveraging the agency’s connections and the credibility of advisors like Schneider and Chartrand. After a series of pitches, Lifelike Capital and Krafton provided the seed round that allowed development to continue.
Wolf Haus’s development philosophy centers on tool‑building. "If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch notes.
The first year of production was split between ideating gameplay and constructing the internal toolset that would keep the open‑world map from collapsing under its own weight. This approach, funded entirely by the equity partners, gave the studio the freedom to iterate without external pressure. Both founders are staunchly opposed to using generative AI for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Automating the creative process would defeat why we love making games," Dietsch says. Wendschuh adds that while the team uses AI for mundane tasks like calendar management, none of it touches the game’s narrative, art, or design. Krafton, despite branding itself as an “AI‑first” company, specifically required Wolf Haus to avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring similar stances from other Krafton‑owned studios.
The commitment to handcrafted content is evident: the six‑kilometre‑square map in Join Us is entirely hand‑built, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors. This dedication reflects the studio’s broader belief that smaller, independent teams can bypass many of the gatekeepers that constrain Hollywood filmmaking. "Anyone can rent a camera and shoot a backyard movie, but without star power or studio backing, success is rare.
In games, the barriers are lower—you don’t need an A‑list actor or director to reach an audience," says Dietsch. He also highlights the immediacy of game development compared with film. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring scripts, casting, financing, and long production schedules.
In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and experienced instantly. This rapid feedback loop fuels the studio’s creative energy.
In summary, Wolf Haus’s journey illustrates how a small, Hollywood‑infused team leveraged in‑house tooling, strategic partnerships, and a firm stance against generative AI to craft an ambitious, high‑quality cult simulator. Their story challenges the notion that massive budgets and large staff are prerequisites for AAA‑level experiences, offering a compelling blueprint for indie developers aiming to punch far above their weight.