The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, offering a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed cultists zip around on pig‑mounted vehicles, unleash a barrage of machine‑gun fire, and the sequence culminates with an ominous image of gigantic, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One element that didn’t make the final cut of the trailer was the infamous "snake gun," a quirky weapon that originated from an unexpected source, according to Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games.
"A kid on my team’s family suggested, ‘What if there was a gun that shot snakes?’" Dietsch recalls. "We had built a modular gun system that could be scaled in minutes, so I spent about half an hour prototyping a snake‑shooting weapon.
The kid went wild, and we kept it in the game." That anecdote encapsulates the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us. The title is an open‑world sandbox survival experience where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult.
The gameplay is deliberately unhinged, encouraging bizarre experiments like the snake gun, while the underlying technology reflects a disciplined, tool‑centric development philosophy. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, explains the studio’s ambition: "We set out to be disruptors.
The industry tells you you need a hundred‑person team to build a high‑fidelity, expansive title. We argued that twelve talented people could pull it off, and everyone thought we were naïve." Abbott and his colleagues, however, are no strangers to punching above their weight. Their backgrounds lie in independent filmmaking, where small budgets demand creative problem‑solving. "We’ve spent years making movies with shoestring resources, so the idea of a lean development team felt natural," Abbott says.
After an arduous 80‑pitch marathon, the studio finally secured equity financing from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood connections run deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University in California alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor‑director Mel Gibson, and the two later 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 originally founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen universe. Abbott also produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us sprouted from Dietsch’s early tinkering with Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt blocked by the high entry barrier to actually create something," he explains.
He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few modest prototypes, and eventually settled on a concept that combined survival mechanics with grindhouse‑style cult drama—a hybrid he felt could bridge his passions for cinema and interactive entertainment. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, expecting it to hit a technical wall soon enough. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter recognized its potential and introduced it to Dooma, the studio’s early‑stage investor.
Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, had previously worked as a producer and screenwriter in Hollywood before moving into games in the early 2000s, contributing writing to titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins through his firm Sekretagent Productions. Later, he founded several tech ventures, including a cannabis formulation company that sold for C$430 million. After selling his cannabis business, Wendschuh bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a call from his old Hollywood‑Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry.
"I was looking at the video Joe sent me, and it completely blew my mind. It convinced me to step out of retirement and join the project," Wendschuh recalls.
He then brought on Reid Schneider, a former Warner Bros. Games vice president now heading Raccoon Logic, as a strategic advisor, and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, an ex‑Ubisoft Montreal programmer, to serve as chief technology officer. With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was funding—a daunting task during a market downturn that began in 2023.
The studio’s early pitches generated interest but also skepticism. "People liked the concept but the timing was tough," Dietsch notes. The team enlisted Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to amplify their outreach, leading to a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024. Wendschuh credits CAA’s influence and the presence of veteran advisors like Schneider and Chartrand for helping secure the capital.
Despite the high‑profile backers, Wolf Haus remains a micro‑studio of just thirteen full‑time staff. The team deliberately maintains a flat structure where every member can contribute creatively. "We wanted a setting where everyone’s voice matters and where the final product truly reflects the people who built it," says Dietsch.
To make such an ambitious open‑world title feasible with a small crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "Any system we create must be scalable and debuggable by a single developer," Dietsch explains.
The first year of development was split between designing gameplay concepts and building the internal tools that would later enable those concepts to scale across a six‑kilometre‑square map without collapsing under their own complexity. This tool‑first approach also aligns with the investors’ expectations; both Krafton and Lifelike view the studio’s equity stake as a long‑term bet on a company that builds reusable technology. Funding has allowed Wolf Haus to self‑finance the entire development cycle, with only a modest portion earmarked for marketing.
"Our equity partners want us to increase enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh says. "When we encounter a problem we don’t know how to solve, we simply create a tool to address it. It may slow us down in the short term, but it empowers a tiny team to achieve something that would normally require dozens of engineers." One recurring industry buzzword is generative AI, which many small studios are rumored to rely on for asset creation. Wolf Haus explicitly rejects that shortcut.
"We don’t use generative AI for any creative work. The human touch is essential to the experience we want to deliver," Dietsch asserts. Wendschuh adds that the only AI tools they employ are mundane productivity aids like calendar scheduling and email drafting. Krafton, despite branding itself as an "AI‑first" company, also insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the game’s creation, fearing it could dilute artistic integrity and jeopardize jobs for voice actors and artists.
Indeed, every inch of Join Us’s six‑kilometre‑square world is handcrafted, and the game features roughly 15,000 voice lines recorded by real actors—a deliberate choice to preserve authenticity even as an indie title. "We wanted a fully human‑crafted experience, despite our modest size," Dietsch emphasizes. Dietsch reflects on the contrast between film and game production.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialise, navigating layers of approvals, casting, and studio green‑lights. "You write a script, wait years, and finally get on set, but you still need permission at every step," he says. In game development, the pipeline is far more immediate: "You can have an idea at breakfast, drop it into the engine by lunch, and see it come alive instantly.
That immediacy is exhilarating." Wendschuh notes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with intense, short‑term bursts of activity on set, followed by long periods of post‑production and distribution negotiations. Games, by contrast, have fewer gatekeepers; a small team can release a polished product without needing A‑list actors or directors. "The barriers to entry are lower, and the chances of reaching an audience are higher," he explains. Both founders agree that the core creative impulse remains the same across mediums: to craft an experience, tell a story, and engage an audience.
"When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games, and it boiled down to a coin toss and a Christmas camera," Dietsch laughs. "I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been straddling both worlds. Whether it’s film or a game, the goal is to immerse people in a narrative and make them feel something.
That hasn’t changed." In summary, Wolf Haus demonstrates that a tightly knit team, armed with bespoke tools, deep Hollywood expertise, and a clear artistic vision, can produce a large‑scale, high‑quality game without leaning on generative AI. Their journey from a simple Unreal Engine experiment to a fully funded, ambitious cult simulator underscores the power of ingenuity, perseverance, and a willingness to defy industry conventions.