The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, giving viewers a glimpse of a darkly humorous co‑op cult simulator. In the teaser, robed cultists zip around on pigs, wielding machine guns, before the screen cuts to massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that originated from a spontaneous suggestion by a developer’s son.
Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, recalls the moment: “My team member’s kid asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool, so within half an hour I built a gun that actually fires snakes. It blew his mind, and we kept it in the game.” That anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises. The title is an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or other players in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult.
Yet the biggest surprise isn’t the bizarre weaponry; it’s how a tiny studio managed to produce a high‑fidelity, large‑scale title with only a dozen full‑time developers. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, sums up the team’s philosophy: “We set out to be disruptors. Everyone told us it was impossible to deliver a game of this scope with just twelve people, but we proved them wrong.” The founders draw heavily on their Hollywood backgrounds, which helped them punch far above their weight. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University, where he met 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’s résumé also includes producing credits on films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
This cinematic lineage gave the team a comfort with tight budgets and ambitious storytelling. Funding the project was a marathon of pitches. After 80 presentations, Wolf Haus finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital.
Both investors took a stake in the studio, allowing the team to remain self‑funded for development while using a modest portion of the capital for marketing later on. The partnership with Krafton—an “AI‑first” company—turned out to be serendipitous because Krafton explicitly insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, aligning perfectly with the studio’s philosophy of preserving a human touch. The genesis of Join Us can be traced back to Dietsch’s early experiments with Unreal Engine.
“Unreal was free to download, and I’d been a gamer forever, but the barrier to actually making something felt huge,” he explains. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually settled on the idea of a doomsday cult simulator—a mash‑up of survival mechanics, grindhouse cinema aesthetics, and the communal storytelling he loved in both film and games. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the duo began to flesh out the concept. Another key figure is Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s chief financial officer and narrative director.
Wendschuh began his career as a producer and screenwriter in Hollywood before transitioning to games in the early 2000s, founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied narrative work for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. In the 2010s he launched several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After cashing out, he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, planning a quiet retirement. That plan was upended when an old roommate, Michael Abbott, called him about a video‑game project.
Wendschuh says the demo blew his mind and pulled him back into development. With Wendschuh on board, the studio recruited Reid Schneider—former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, the creators of Journey to the Savage Planet—as a strategic advisor. Schneider also brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a veteran programmer from Ubisoft Montreal, to serve as chief technology officer.
The core team, once assembled, faced the daunting task of securing financing during an industry downturn. Their pitch cycle began in the summer of 2023, and after a series of setbacks they enlisted the representation of Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Leveraging CAA’s connections, including agents familiar with both gaming and film, they finally closed a seed round with Krafton and Lifelike in 2024. The studio’s lean structure—13 full‑time staff members—means each person wears multiple hats.
Dietsch emphasizes that everyone has a voice and touches every aspect of the creative process, fostering a tight‑knit culture. To make a massive open‑world game feasible with such a small crew, the team 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 says.
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 as the world expanded. Funding from Krafton and Lifelike allowed the studio to focus on perfecting these tools rather than chasing quick cash. Because the investors hold equity, they are motivated to see Wolf Haus increase its enterprise value, which translates into support for long‑term development practices such as building bespoke tools for every technical hurdle. While this approach can slow down immediate progress, it empowers the tiny team to achieve a level of polish usually reserved for much larger studios.
When asked about the role of generative AI, both Dietsch and Wendschuh are unequivocal: the studio does not employ AI for any creative tasks. “We believe a game needs a human touch. Using an AI to generate assets would defeat the purpose of why we love making games,” Dietsch explains. Wendschuh adds that the only AI tools they use are mundane productivity aids—calendar scheduling and email drafting.
Krafton, despite branding itself as AI‑first, also insisted that Wolf Haus stay clear of generative AI in the creative pipeline, mirroring a broader industry conversation about preserving jobs for voice actors, artists, and writers. Every element of Join Us is handcrafted. The six‑kilometre‑square map was built by hand, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by human actors.
This dedication to handcrafted content reflects the studio’s commitment to authenticity, even as an indie title. Dietsch reflects on the differences between film and game creation.
In cinema, an idea can take years to reach the set, requiring countless approvals and the involvement of high‑profile talent to secure financing. By contrast, a game idea can be prototyped in a single morning, inserted into the engine, and instantly visualized. This immediacy fuels the studio’s creative energy. Wendschuh notes that while film production is heavily front‑loaded with intense, short‑term bursts of activity, game development offers a more iterative, accessible pathway for small teams to bring ambitious visions to life without needing A‑list actors or directors.
Both founders trace their passion back to childhood: Dietsch wanted to make movies or games, and a coin toss plus a Christmas camera set him on the path. He learned programming on a TI‑83 calculator, blending technical curiosity with storytelling. He believes that regardless of medium, the core goal remains the same—crafting an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience. Join Us stands as a testament to that belief, demonstrating that a small, focused team with the right blend of Hollywood savvy, tech expertise, and unwavering dedication can deliver a sprawling, high‑quality game without relying on generative AI or massive staff numbers.