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 charge on pigs while firing machine guns, and the sequence culminates with an image of massive, Cthulhu‑like tentacles. One detail that didn’t make the final cut was the infamous "snake gun," a weapon that Joe Dietsch, the CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games, says originated from a child’s off‑hand suggestion.
"One of our team member’s son asked, ‘What if there was a snake‑shooting gun?’ 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 was thrilled and we kept it in the game," Dietsch recalls.
This anecdote captures the chaotic, improvisational spirit that defines Join Us, an open‑world sandbox survival game where players can recruit followers—or other players in co‑op mode—to join a 1970s‑style cult. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small crew to produce a high‑fidelity title that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, sums up their ambition: "We set out to be disruptors. We told everyone we could build a AAA‑level experience with just twelve people, and most people thought we were crazy." Their confidence stems from a background in indie filmmaking, where they learned to achieve big results on shoestring budgets.
After 80 pitches, the team finally secured equity investment from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, giving Wolf Haus the financial runway to continue development. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep. Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson, son of actor 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, a production company originally founded by Chris Roberts before his transition to the Star Citizen project.
Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84 starring Jamie Foxx. These film‑industry roots have informed the studio’s cinematic sensibility and its willingness to take bold creative risks.
Join Us began as a personal experiment in Unreal Engine. "Unreal was free to download, and I’d always loved games, but the barrier to actually building something felt huge," Dietsch explains. He taught himself the engine through YouTube tutorials, creating a handful of small prototypes before committing to a larger vision.
The core concept— a doomsday cult simulator that blends survival mechanics with grindhouse cinema aesthetics— kept pulling him back. He built a proof‑of‑concept demo, showed it to Abbott, and the two took the idea to Dooma, a production partner.
Dooma Wendschuh, Wolf Haus’s CFO and narrative director, entered the picture after a career that straddles film and games. He produced and wrote for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins through his company Sekretagent Productions.
Later, he founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for roughly C$430 million. After a brief retirement on a remote Canadian island, a call from his old Hollywood‑hill roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back into the industry. Wendschuh was instantly impressed by Dietsch’s demo and agreed to join the effort, bringing on former Warner Bros. Games VP Reid Schneider as a strategic advisor and recruiting Ubisoft Montreal veteran Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand 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. Initial outreach yielded interest but no commitments. After partnering with CAA in Los Angeles and refining their pitch throughout 2024, Wolf Haus finally closed a seed round with Lifelike Capital and Krafton.
Wendschuh credits the CAA relationship— which also represents titles like 007: First Light— and the presence of seasoned veterans like Schneider and Chartrand for helping secure the deal. What truly sets Join Us apart is how it is being built: a core team of just 13 full‑time staff. "We entered the project with a clear understanding of scope and a desire to keep the team small enough that everyone has a voice and can touch every aspect of the creative process," says Dietsch.
To make such an ambitious open‑world game feasible with a lean crew, the studio invested heavily in custom tooling from day one. "Every system in the game needed to be scalable and debuggable by a single person," Dietsch notes.
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 map without collapsing under their own weight. The equity funding model gave Wolf Haus the breathing room to perfect these tools. Krafton and Lifelike’s investment was used directly to finance development, keeping the project essentially self‑funded. "Our investors are motivated to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh explains.
"Whenever we hit a problem we can’t solve, we build a tool for it. It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a tiny team to achieve something that would normally require dozens of engineers." Despite the buzz around generative AI in game creation, Wolf Haus deliberately steers clear of it for creative work. "We believe a human touch is essential.
Using AI to generate core content would defeat the purpose of why we love making games," Dietsch says. Wendschuh adds that the studio only employs AI for mundane tasks like calendar management and email drafting.
Even Krafton, which recently branded itself as an "AI‑first" company, insisted that Wolf Haus not rely on generative AI for artistic production. This stance mirrors that of Neon Giant, another Krafton‑owned studio that publicly rejected AI‑driven development. The commitment to handcrafted content is evident in the game's scope: the entire six‑kilometre‑square world is manually built, and all 15,000 voice lines are performed by human actors.
"That level of artisanal effort mattered to us, even as an indie," Dietsch emphasizes. Transitioning from film to games also offered Dietsch a new sense of immediacy.
In cinema, an idea can take years to materialize, requiring countless approvals and a massive production pipeline. In contrast, a game concept can be prototyped within hours, allowing developers to see and iterate on their vision almost instantly. Wendschuh observes that film production is heavily front‑loaded, with extensive pre‑production work needed to secure high‑profile talent and studio backing. While anyone can shoot a low‑budget film with a backyard camera, breaking through without star power or distribution is rare.
Game development, however, has far fewer gatekeepers; a small team can release a polished product without needing A‑list actors or directors. Both mediums share a common creative impulse: telling stories and delivering experiences. Dietsch reflects that his childhood fascination with both movies and games—spurred by a Christmas camera and programming on a TI‑83— ultimately led him to a career where he can blend the two.
Whether through film or interactive entertainment, the goal remains the same: to craft an engaging narrative that resonates with an audience.