The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator where robed followers ride pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and ultimately confront massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous snake gun, a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was born from a child’s imagination.
According to Dietsch, a team member’s son asked, “Could there be a snake gun?” Thanks to an in‑house tool that lets the developers prototype weapons in minutes, Dietsch spent roughly half an hour building a firearm that launches serpents. The result amazed the youngster and earned a permanent place in the game.
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 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a high‑fidelity experience to be produced by a remarkably small crew. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, sums up their ambition: “We set out to be disruptors.” “We told everyone, ‘We don’t need a hundred‑person studio; twelve people can do this.’ Most people thought we were delusional,” Abbott recalls.
Their confidence stems from a history of achieving big results on shoestring budgets. “We come from indie film,” he says, “and we’re used to punching well above our weight.” After 80 pitch meetings, Wolf Haus finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the company.
The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson and fellow co‑founder—co‑writing and co‑directing 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 house founded by Chris Roberts before his Star Citizen venture. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx.
Join Us originated when Dietsch began tinkering with Unreal Engine. “It was a very simple start: I discovered Unreal was free to download,” he explains. A lifelong gamer and movie fan, Dietsch felt the barrier to creating interactive experiences was too high. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, eventually building a few modest games before deciding to tackle something larger.
The concept of a doomsday cult simulator kept resurfacing because it blended his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema, merging his two favorite storytelling mediums into a single intellectual property. He built a proof‑of‑concept prototype, assuming it would soon hit a technical wall. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma, a partner studio. 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.
He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. Later he launched several tech ventures, most notably 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, in classic Hollywood fashion, a call from his old roommate Michael Abbott pulled him back. “I was looking at a game Joe had made, and it blew my mind,” Wendschuh says, prompting him to join the effort.
He introduced Reid Schneider—former Warner Bros. Games VP and now head of Raccoon Logic—to act as strategic advisor, and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was funding, a task made tougher by a market downturn in mid‑2023. The studio pitched relentlessly, eventually enlisting CAA (Creative Artists Agency) in Los Angeles to help navigate the process.
Their persistence paid off in 2024 when Lifelike Capital and Krafton closed a seed round. Wendschuh credits CAA’s connections—such as Derek Douglas, who had represented him during his twelve‑year game‑development career—and the presence of veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for the successful raise. Despite the high‑profile backers, Join Us remains a micro‑studio effort, employing just 13 full‑time staff.
Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional: “We wanted everyone to have a voice, to touch the creative, and to feel that the game is truly made by this specific group.” To make a large‑scale, open‑world game feasible with so few people, Wolf Haus invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. “If a system exists in the game, it must be scalable and debuggable by a single person,” Dietsch explains. The first year of development was split between ideating gameplay and building the internal toolset that would keep the project from collapsing under its own weight. The equity funding model gave the studio the runway to perfect these tools.
Krafton and Lifelike’s capital financed the entire development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. “Our investors are motivated to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos,” says Wendschuh. Whenever the team encounters a problem they can’t solve, they create a bespoke tool, even if it slows short‑term progress, because it enables the tiny team to accomplish something that would otherwise require dozens of developers.
When asked about generative AI, the team’s stance is clear: they avoid it in creative production. “We believe a human touch is essential,” Dietsch says.
“Turning development over to an AI would defeat the reason we get up every morning.” Wendschuh adds that the studio only uses AI for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton—positioned as an “AI‑first” company—insisted that Wolf Haus not employ generative AI for artistic work, mirroring a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio.
The commitment to handcrafted content extends to the game’s world and voice work. The six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely hand‑built, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors, not synthetic voices. “That was non‑negotiable for us, even as a small indie,” Dietsch asserts.
Dietsch also reflects on the differences between film and game creation. In cinema, an idea can take years to reach the set, requiring approvals from studios, directors, and actors. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning, placed into the engine, and instantly visualized.
This immediacy excites him: “You can see it, you can touch it, and that’s thrilling.” Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense pre‑production phases to secure high‑profile talent, whereas games face fewer gatekeepers. “Anyone can rent a camera and shoot a backyard movie, but without big names or distribution, success is unlikely. In games, the barriers are lower; you don’t need an A‑list actor or director to make a hit.” Both mediums, however, share a core creative drive: storytelling and experience design.
“When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It boiled down to a coin toss and maybe getting a camera for Christmas,” Dietsch laughs. He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, blending his twin passions early on. “Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re trying to give someone an experience, tell a story, and engage them.
That fundamental goal doesn’t change.” Join Us thus stands as a testament to what a small, focused team with Hollywood experience, savvy financing, and a dedication to handcrafted tools can achieve—without leaning on generative AI, and with a uniquely cult‑centric vision that merges survival gameplay, dark comedy, and cinematic flair.