The trailer for Join Us first appeared during the Xbox Showcase in June, giving viewers a glimpse of a darkly humorous cooperative cult simulator. In the clip, robed cultists ride on pigs, fire machine guns, and the sequence culminates with a monstrous, Cthulhu‑like mass of tentacles. What didn’t make it into the public preview, according to Joe Dietsch—CEO and creative director of Wolf Haus Games—was the infamous snake gun. "One of our team member’s kids came up with the idea and asked, ‘What would a snake‑firing gun look like?’ We had a rapid‑prototyping tool that lets us scale weapons in minutes, so within about thirty minutes I built a gun that actually shoots snakes.
The kid was blown away, and the weapon stayed in the final build," Dietsch recalls. That anecdote captures the chaotic, over‑the‑top gameplay that Join Us promises: an open‑world sandbox where players can recruit followers—or invite friends in co‑op mode—to build a 1970s‑style cult empire. It also illustrates the studio’s technology‑first mindset, which has enabled a small crew to deliver a high‑fidelity experience that would normally require a much larger staff. Michael Abbott, Wolf Haus’s chief operating officer, summed it up succinctly: “We wanted to be disruptors.
We told everyone we could build this with twelve people, and they all said it was impossible.” The team’s confidence stems from a history of punching well above their weight in the indie film world. "We come from indie cinema, where you learn to do a lot with very little," Abbott explains.
After 80 pitch meetings, Wolf Haus finally secured equity funding from Krafton and Lifelike Capital, both of which took stakes in the studio. The founders’ Hollywood pedigree runs deep.
Dietsch studied film at Chapman University alongside Louie Gibson—son of Mel Gibson—who later co‑founded Wolf Haus and 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 he turned his attention to Star Citizen.
Abbott later produced films such as Fight for ’84, starring Jamie Foxx. Join Us originated from Dietsch’s early experiments in Unreal Engine.
"Unreal Engine was free to download, and I’d always loved games but felt there was a huge barrier to actually creating something," he says. He taught himself through YouTube tutorials, built a few tiny prototypes, and eventually settled on the idea of a doomsday cult simulator that merged survival mechanics with grindhouse‑movie aesthetics.
He created a proof‑of‑concept demo, assuming he would soon hit a technical wall. When he showed the demo to Abbott, the latter took it to Dooma, a partner that helped refine the vision. Dooma’s CFO and narrative director, Dooma Wendschuh, began his career as a film producer and screenwriter before moving into games in the early 2000s, providing writing for titles like Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones, Assassin’s Creed, and Batman: Arkham Origins.
He later founded several tech ventures, including the cannabis formulation firm Ebbu, which sold for C$430 million. After selling Ebbu, Wendschuh bought a remote restaurant on a tiny Canadian island, planning to retire. Yet a call from his old Hollywood Hills roommate, Michael Abbott, pulled him back. "I saw the demo Joe had made and it blew my mind, so I came out of retirement," Wendschuh recounts.
He introduced the project to Reid Schneider, former VP at Warner Bros. Games and now head of Raccoon Logic, who became a strategic advisor and recruited Pierre‑Olivier Chartrand, a former Ubisoft Montreal programmer, as chief technology officer.
With the core team assembled, the next hurdle was financing, which proved difficult amid an industry downturn in 2023. The studio pitched relentlessly, eventually signing with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) in Los Angeles and securing a seed round from Lifelike Capital and Krafton in 2024.
Wendschuh believes the CAA connection—alongside veteran advisors like Schneider and Chartrand—was crucial. Despite the high ambitions, Join Us is being built by just 13 full‑time staff members. "We entered the project fully aware of the scope, but we also wanted a tight‑knit environment where everyone’s voice matters and everyone can touch the creative side," says Dietsch. To make a large open‑world game feasible with such a lean crew, the studio invested heavily in internal tooling from day one.
"Every system must be scalable and debuggable by a single person. We built a toolkit that lets us expand features across the map without the project collapsing under its own weight," Dietsch explains. The funding structure gave the team the runway to perfect those tools.
Krafton and Lifelike’s equity investment essentially self‑funded development, with only a modest amount of project finance earmarked for marketing. "Our investors are incentivized to increase the studio’s enterprise value, so they support our tool‑building ethos," Wendschuh notes. "Whenever we encounter a problem we can’t solve, we simply build a tool to address it. It may slow us down in the short term, but it enables a tiny team to deliver a game of this scale." When asked about generative AI, the studio’s stance is clear: they avoid it for creative work.
"We believe a human touch is essential. Using AI to generate core content would defeat why we love making games," says Dietsch.
Wendschuh adds that the only AI they use is for administrative tasks like calendar management and email drafting. Interestingly, Krafton, which markets itself as an "AI‑first" company, explicitly required Wolf Haus not to employ generative AI in the creative pipeline, echoing similar statements from Krafton‑owned Neon Giant. The commitment to hand‑crafted content extends to the game’s world and audio.
The six‑kilometre‑square map was built entirely by hand, and the 15,000 voice lines were recorded by human actors—an effort the team deemed vital, even for an indie title. Dietsch also reflects on the contrast between film and game development.
In film, an idea can take years to materialise, requiring approvals, casting, and studio green‑lights. In games, an idea can be prototyped the same day, placed into the engine, and iterated instantly.
"That immediacy is exhilarating," he says. Wendschuh points out that while filmmaking is front‑loaded with high‑stakes set‑ups and the need for star power, games face fewer gatekeepers. "Anyone can rent a camera and shoot a backyard movie, but without big names or distribution, success is unlikely.
In games, the barrier is lower; you don’t need an A‑list actor or director to reach an audience," he observes. Both mediums, however, share a common creative drive: storytelling and immersive experiences. "When I was six, I wanted to make either movies or games. It boiled down to a coin toss and getting a camera for Christmas.
I learned programming on a TI‑83, so I’ve always been drawn to both. Whether you’re making a film or a game, you’re delivering an experience, telling a story, and engaging the audience. That core impulse hasn’t changed," Dietsch concludes.