The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator where robed followers zip around on pigs, unleash machine‑gun fire, and ultimately confront massive Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One of the most memorable, yet omitted, moments was the appearance of a "snake gun" – a weapon that literally fires serpents. According to Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, the idea came from a team member’s child. "His son asked, ‘What would a snake‑gun look like?’ and because we had a modular gun system we could prototype it in about thirty minutes.
I built it on the spot and it’s still in the final build," Dietsch recalls, highlighting the spontaneous, experimental spirit that defines the game. Join Us is an open‑world sandbox survival experience that lets players recruit followers – or other players in co‑op – to build a 1970s‑style cult. The gameplay is deliberately chaotic, encouraging absurd strategies and over‑the‑top combat scenarios. This design philosophy mirrors the studio’s broader approach: leveraging technology to punch far above their weight.
Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑quality experience with just twelve people. Most thought we were crazy, but our indie‑film background taught us to do a lot with very little." The founders’ roots run deep in Hollywood.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University, where he befriended Louie Gibson, son of actor‑director Mel Gibson, who later co‑founded Wolf Haus. Together they co‑wrote and co‑directed the indie features Happy Hunting and Manifest West. Abbott is the son of renowned makeup artist Larry Abbott and helped launch Ascendant Pictures, a production company started by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen universe. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx.
This blend of cinematic experience and entrepreneurial grit gave the team a unique perspective on storytelling and production efficiency. The seed of Join Us sprouted when Dietsch began tinkering with Unreal Engine, attracted by its free download model. "I’d loved games forever, but the barrier to actually creating one felt huge. I downloaded Unreal, followed YouTube tutorials, and started making tiny prototypes," he explains.
After a few modest projects, the concept of a doomsday cult simulator kept resurfacing, merging his love for survival mechanics, grindhouse cinema, and narrative depth into a single intellectual property. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, expecting to hit technical roadblocks quickly. When he showed it to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and presented it to Dooma, a partner studio.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, entered the picture with a diverse résumé spanning film production, screenwriting, and video‑game narrative work. Early in his career he founded Sekretagent Productions, providing writing services for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
Later, he built and sold a cannabis formulation company, Ebbu, for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million). After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into game development. Impressed by Dietsch’s demo, Wendschuh helped secure strategic advisory support from former Warner Bros.
Games VP Reid Schneider and recruited former Ubisoft Montreal programmer Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as chief technology officer. Funding proved to be the next major hurdle. The team began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn.
Despite enthusiastic reactions to the concept, securing capital was difficult. After initial outreach, Wolf Haus signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, which helped them refine their pitch and re‑approach investors in 2024. Their persistence paid off when they closed a seed round with Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both taking equity stakes. Wendschuh notes that CAA’s representation, which also handles titles like 007: First Light, and the presence of seasoned veterans such as Schneider and Chartrand, were instrumental in building investor confidence.
What truly sets Join Us apart is the way it is being built: a 13‑person core team handling every aspect of development. Dietsch emphasizes that the small size is intentional, fostering an environment where each member has a voice and can directly influence creative decisions. To make a large‑scale, high‑fidelity game feasible with such a lean crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from the outset.
"Any system we create must be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch says. The first year of development was therefore split between ideating gameplay features and constructing the internal tools that would allow those features to scale across a six‑kilometre‑square open world without collapsing under their own weight. The equity‑funded model gave Wolf Haus the runway to perfect these tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s investments were used to self‑finance the entire development process, with only a modest portion of later financing earmarked for marketing.
This structure aligns investor incentives with the studio’s long‑term value creation, encouraging the continued development of reusable tools that can accelerate future projects. While some studios lean on generative AI to accelerate asset creation, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Using AI to generate core game content would undermine why we get up every morning," Dietsch asserts. Wendschuh adds that AI subscriptions are limited to administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting, not artistic or narrative production.
Krafton’s stance on AI further reinforced this decision. Although the Korean publisher has branded itself an "AI‑first" company, it explicitly required Wolf Haus to refrain from using generative AI in the creative pipeline, fearing that such practices could devalue the studio’s artistic integrity and jeopardize jobs for voice actors and artists.
This mirrors a broader industry conversation, as seen with Neon Giant’s public clarification that it does not participate in Krafton’s AI initiatives. The commitment to handcrafted content is evident throughout Join Us.
The expansive map is entirely hand‑crafted, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by professional actors—an impressive feat for an indie‑scale project. Dietsch believes this human‑centric approach enhances immersion and respects the craft of performance. Transitioning from film to games also gave Dietsch a fresh perspective on creative immediacy. In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals and a massive production pipeline.
In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours, placed directly into the engine, and iterated upon instantly. This rapid feedback loop fuels the studio’s experimental culture, allowing whimsical ideas like the snake gun to move from imagination to playable reality without bureaucratic delay. Wendschuh points out that while film production is heavily front‑loaded—requiring star talent, studio backing, and extensive pre‑production—game development offers a lower barrier to entry.
Anyone can download a game engine and start building, which democratizes creation and reduces reliance on high‑profile names. This accessibility, combined with Wolf Haus’s Hollywood‑savvy storytelling, positions Join Us as a unique hybrid of cinematic flair and interactive freedom. Reflecting on his childhood, Dietsch recalls that his passion for both mediums was sparked by a simple coin toss and a Christmas camera. He taught himself programming on a TI‑83 calculator, laying the groundwork for a career that now bridges movies and games.
"Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging an audience," he concludes. "The medium changes, but the core creative impulse remains the same."