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 zip around on pigs, unleash machine‑guns, and eventually confront colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. What didn’t make the 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 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 fly. The kid went nuts, and the snake‑gun stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls.
This anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival title that lets players recruit followers—or fellow players—to a 1970s‑style cult. It also highlights the studio’s technology‑first philosophy, which has allowed a tiny crew to produce a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a far larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, sums up their ambition: "We wanted to be disruptors.
Everyone told us a twelve‑person team couldn’t build a game of this scope, but we proved them wrong." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to stretch modest budgets into impressive productions. After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving them the financial runway to continue development. 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 his Star Citizen days.
Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 with Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
"I discovered Unreal was free to download and started learning through YouTube tutorials," he says. Despite having no formal game‑dev background, he built a few small prototypes before committing to a full‑scale doomsday‑cult simulator that merged his love of survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics.
He created a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the concept quickly gained momentum within the fledgling studio. The financial side was shepherded by Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director.
Wendschuh began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before transitioning to games in the early 2000s, founding Sekretagent Productions, which supplied writing for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins. He later built several tech ventures, most notably the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million (about $330 million USD). 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 impressed by Dietsch’s demo and agreed to join, eventually bringing on former Warner Bros.
Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor and ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand as chief technology officer. Securing funding proved challenging amid a market downturn in 2023‑24.
The team pitched relentlessly, eventually partnering with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for representation. Their persistence paid off when Lifelike Capital and Krafton provided seed funding, allowing the studio to remain self‑sufficient. "Krafton and Lifelike are equity partners, so the money they invested directly finances the game," explains Wendschuh. This equity model gives investors a stake in the studio’s long‑term value, encouraging them to support the extensive tool‑building that underpins the project.
Tool development is a cornerstone of Wolf Haus’s workflow. With only a dozen full‑time staff, each system must be scalable and debuggable by a single person.
"We spent the first year ideating the game while simultaneously building the tools that make it possible," Dietsch notes. This approach ensures that as features proliferate across the open‑world map, the engine doesn’t collapse under its own weight. Despite the industry’s growing fascination with generative AI, Wolf Haus deliberately avoids it in creative production.
"We don’t use generative AI for any artistic work," says Dietsch. "Our process relies on human craftsmanship; using an AI would undermine why we love making games in the first place." Wendschuh adds that the studio’s AI subscriptions are limited to 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 game creation, mirroring a similar stance taken by Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The commitment to hand‑crafted content extends to the game’s world and audio. The six‑kilometre‑square map is entirely built by hand, and all 15,000 voice lines are recorded by human actors, reflecting the studio’s belief that authentic human performance is irreplaceable.
Dietsch finds game development offers a immediacy that film lacks. In cinema, an idea can take years to reach production, requiring approvals from studios, directors, and actors. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped in a single morning and tested in the engine the same day, providing instant feedback and creative satisfaction. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with extensive pre‑production negotiations and gatekeeping from high‑profile talent.
While anyone can shoot a low‑budget movie, breaking through without marquee names is rare. Video games, however, have fewer gatekeepers, allowing small teams to achieve commercial success without A‑list collaborators. Both Dietsch and Wendschuh agree that storytelling remains the core driver across mediums.
Whether through a camera lens or a game engine, the goal is to craft experiences that engage, entertain, and convey a narrative. Their journey—from Hollywood film sets to a modest island restaurant, and finally to a twelve‑person game studio—illustrates how diverse creative backgrounds can converge to produce something truly original. Join Us stands as a testament to that convergence: a cult‑themed, open‑world adventure built by a tight‑knit team that values human creativity over algorithmic shortcuts, proving that a small, determined crew can still make a big splash in the gaming world.