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 gallop on pigs while brandishing machine guns, before the screen fades to an image of colossal, Cthulhu‑like tentacles.
One element that didn’t make the final cut was the "snake gun," a quirky weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says was inspired by a child’s imagination. "My team member’s son asked, ‘What would a snake‑shooting gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that let us scale a weapon in minutes, so I whipped up a snake‑gun in about half an hour. The kid was thrilled, and the gun stayed in the game," Dietsch recalls. This anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire.
Beyond the bizarre weaponry, the project showcases Wolf Haus’s tech‑first philosophy, which has allowed a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, the studio’s COO, explains their mission: "We set out to be disruptors. Everyone told us a twelve‑person team couldn’t deliver a game of this scale, but we proved them wrong.
Our background in indie film taught us how to punch well above our weight." After 80 pitches, the studio finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which now hold stakes in Wolf Haus. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of Mel Gibson, who also co‑founded Wolf Haus and 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, the production company originally founded by Chris Roberts before his move to Star Citizen. Abbott later produced movies such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in 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 says. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually gravitated toward a doomsday‑cult simulator concept that merged his love of survival games with grindhouse cinema.
He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the two took it to Dooma, the studio that would later become Wolf Haus. Dooma Wendschuh, the studio’s CFO and narrative director, entered the gaming world after a career in film production and screenwriting. He founded Sekretagent Productions, providing 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, including the cannabis formulation company Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million (US$330 million).
After that windfall, he bought a remote island restaurant in Canada, intending to retire. Yet a sudden call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into development. "I watched the demo Joe sent me and it blew my mind.
It was the spark that got me out of retirement," Wendschuh says. He then recruited Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, to act as a strategic advisor, and brought in Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer. Funding proved to be the next hurdle.
The team began pitching in the summer of 2023, a period marked by a broader industry downturn. "People liked what we were doing, but the market was tight," Dietsch notes. After initial outreach, they signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles, re‑pitched in 2024, and finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton. Wendschuh believes CAA’s representation—also handling titles like 007: First Light—was crucial, as was the involvement of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand.
"My agent at CAA, Derek Douglas, had represented me for twelve years in games and previously headed the video‑game department at William Morris," Wendschuh adds. What truly sets Join Us apart is the way it is being built: a core team of just thirteen full‑time staff. "We entered the project with a clear understanding of its scope and wanted to keep the team small so everyone could have a voice and touch the creative process," says Dietsch. To make such an ambitious open‑world possible, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one.
"Any system in the game must be scalable and debuggable by a single person. We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across a massive map without the project collapsing under its own weight," Dietsch explains. This tooling focus consumed much of the first year, as the team simultaneously iterated on gameplay ideas while constructing the underlying technology.
The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the runway needed to perfect those tools. "Krafton and Lifelike’s investment financed the entire development.
We’re now adding a modest amount of project finance for marketing, but the core game was built with their equity capital," Wendschuh says. The investors’ alignment with the studio’s long‑term value creation encourages a culture of building reusable tools: "Whenever we hit a problem we don’t know how to solve, we simply build a tool. It may slow us down short‑term, but it enables a tiny team to deliver a game of this magnitude." In an era where many studios tout generative‑AI pipelines, Wolf Haus deliberately steers clear of AI for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Using AI to generate core content would defeat why we love making games," Dietsch states. Wendschuh concedes they use AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting, but not for any artistic or design decisions.
Interestingly, Krafton—publicly branding itself as an "AI‑first" company—insisted that Wolf Haus avoid generative AI in the creative pipeline, fearing it could dilute the studio’s artistic integrity. This mirrors a similar stance taken by Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio, which publicly denied using AI for its projects.
Both founders emphasize respect for creative labor. "Generative AI threatens jobs for voice actors and artists, and that’s not a risk we’re willing to take," Wendschuh says.
Accordingly, every square kilometre of Join Us’s map is handcrafted, and the game’s 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—a point of pride for a studio of this size. Dietsch also reflects on the differences between filmmaking and game development.
In film, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring countless approvals before a single shot is filmed. "With games, you can have an idea at breakfast and see it in the engine by lunch.
That immediacy is exhilarating," he explains. Wendschuh adds that movies are heavily front‑loaded: securing high‑profile directors or actors is often the gate‑keeping step before a project ever gets green‑lit. By contrast, the video‑game space has far fewer gatekeepers, making it easier for small teams to break through without A‑list talent.
Despite the divergent mediums, both creators see a shared purpose: delivering experiences and stories. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games—it boiled down to a coin toss and whether I got a camera for Christmas. I learned programming on a TI‑83, so both worlds have always been part of me.
Ultimately, whether it’s a film or a game, you’re trying to engage an audience, tell a story, and create an emotional journey," Dietsch concludes.